Liverpool have enjoyed some brilliant players across the years, but when thinking of the finest to ply their trade on green grass, fans can often be drawn, for better or worse, to those at the front of the ship.
We get it. Goals are great. Goals, by their very definition, are the most crucial part of the game. The goal of football is to score more than the other team.
But what about those in the middle? Liverpool have had some fine midfielders throughout the age – what about the best of modern times?
Liverpool's finest modern midfielders
When you think of the finest Liverpool midfielders of the past couple of decades, who first springs to mind? Charlie Adam? Just kidding. It would have to be, of course, Steven Gerrard.
Perhaps Liverpool’s most iconic-ever player, Gerrard played 710 matches for the Reds and notched 341 goal contributions, with Arsenal legend Thierry Henry even calling him “one of the greatest midfielders of all time.”
He’s not the only one. Though he’s a bit like marmite, Jordan Henderson succeeded Gerrard as captain and went on to lift the Premier League and Champions League for the Merseysiders, remarkably tough fibre and embodying the weathering of adversity.
Who else? Xabi Alonso is one of the finest midfielders of his generation and played in an instrumental Champions League triumph that immortalised Gerrard as one of Liverpool’s greats.
Now managing Bayer Leverkusen, Alonso has led a storied career that has nudged him into management – and he’s heading to the top there too.
Liverpool will always cherish the time spent with the Spaniard in the ranks, but his £30m sale in 2009 seemed to be part of a grand watershed moment that sent Anfield into a tail-spin.
His vision and on-the-ball thinking, so to speak, established him as one of football’s finest maestros – his sale was sad, yes, but Liverpool felt that a successor would emerge at some stage, and that successor was deemed to be Pedro Chirivella.
Pedro Chrivella was supposed to be the next Alonso
Presently, it could be said that 19-year-old talent Stefan Bajcetic is the perfect option to replace Alonso in the Liverpool midfield, albeit rather belatedly.
Across the 2022/23 season, Bajcetic featured 19 times for Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side, proving to be a bright spark in an otherwise colourless season. Liverpool had fallen by the wayside, Henderson and his midfield brethren sapped and dried up.
Like his countryman, Bajcetic is a mobile midfielder with a whole host of technical qualities that bespeak his place among the finest players in Europe, but before him, Chirivella was indeed touted as the star to replace Alonso on Merseyside.
1.
Michael Owen
Wimbledon
17y 143d
2.
Raheem Sterling
Reading
17y 317d
3.
Stefan Bajcetic
Aston Villa
18y 65d
4.
Robbie Fowler
Oldham Athletic
18y 190d
5.
Jamie Carragher
Aston Villa
18y 356d
Once billed as Liverpool’s next Alonso amid interest from Real Madrid, while he made headway at youth level for Liverpool, Chirivella failed to break into Klopp’s first-team and left on a free transfer in 2020, seven years after leaving his homeland to cut his teeth at Kirkby.
Now 27, he claims that he turned down a long-term contract offer from the Reds, instead signing for Nantes as a 22-year-old in 2020 in order to establish himself and fine-tune his ball-playing qualities.
It’s worked, to be fair. Now Nantes’ captain, Chirivella is crucial to the fluency of Antoine Kombouaré’s system, ranking among the top 22% of midfielders across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for progressive passes per 90, as per FBref.
A pass is considered progressive if the distance between the starting point and the next touch is at least 10 meters closer to the opponent’s goal or any completed pass into the penalty area.
But, alas, not at Liverpool. Though there were high hopes for this one, with fans even hailing one “incredible” performance in the FA Cup while he still held hopes of securing a place in Liverpool’s senior set-up, he left for free.
The Valencia-born ace managed to complete 11 appearances for Liverpool, notching one assist, but unfortunately, as the Merseysiders rose to the very top under Klopp, so too did Chirivella’s hopes dwindle.
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Things have been okay on Liverpool’s end, and Chirivella should be proud of his career in France too. Maybe Bajcetic can succeed, where his compatriot has failed.
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