#100PWSTK: Tony Barrett's top five

More than 100,000 Liverpool fans voted in the original series seven years ago and the list became the definitive rundown of our greatest ever players.

Fans have until the end of February to have their say and select a top 10 before the 2013 list is revealed on Liverpoolfc.com and LFC TV day by day over the summer.

And over the coming weeks we'll be bringing you the choices of people who have worked at the club and those in the media who have followed the Reds closely down the years.

Next in the queue is Times journalist Tony Barrett...

Where to begin? Who to choose and who to leave out? Is it better to be a great player in a good side or an outstanding player in a poor one? Picking the top five Liverpool players isn't as straightforward as it may seem, so the only way to do it is to come up with your own criteria.

Mine is relatively simple - the only players I have considered are ones I saw myself, which rules out anyone whose Liverpool career came to an end before the 1980s.

That means no Billy Liddell, Elisha Scott, Albert Stubbins, Kevin Keegan, Ian St John, Roger Hunt or Emlyn Hughes. There is no doubting their greatness or their claims to be in the official top 10 but for me rating them is best left to those who actually witnessed their brilliance.

I also reserve the right to declare a tie in cases where I find it impossible to separate players. In other words, it's my top five and I'll do it how I want!

And apologies to the goalkeepers' and defenders' unions, the members of whom do not even get a look in. When it comes to shaking the Kop, no-one does it quite like forwards and midfielders.

5. Ian Rush

"Ian Rush. Ian Rush. Ian, Ian Rush. When he gets the ball he scores a goal. Ian, Ian Rush."

His theme tune said it all. According to Kenny Dalglish, Rush was the best partner he ever had and anyone who watched the pair in their prime will understand why. It wasn't just the goals he scored - all 346 of them! - it was his work-rate, his willingness to chase defenders and retrieve possession and his unsurpassed movement that made him the perfect foil for Dalglish.

"He set an example to all his colleagues, not only in his scoring, but also in his willingness to tackle back," Joe Fagan once said. "He wins the ball so often it provides a psychological boost for defenders."

That, in essence, was what helped make the Liverpool team he starred in so superior to their competitors. They weren't just better than their rivals, they also worked harder than them and showed greater desire.

Rush was central to that ethic. He could have relied on his goalscoring brilliance in the knowledge that it was more than sufficient to justify his place but he didn't - he ran his legs off on a weekly basis in search of collective glory. 

"Rushie was perceptive and had two good feet," Dalglish wrote in his autobiography. "He is one of the most instinctive finishers football has ever seen. My partnership with Rush proved so good because he could run and I could pass. I would just try to put the ball in front of him.

"Rushie said that he made runs knowing the ball would come to him. That was true but only because his runs were so clever. His run was more important than my pass. Rush was easily the best partner I've ever had. We could have been made for each other."

Rush was certainly made for Liverpool. In the modern era, only Robbie Fowler and Fernando Torres have either matched or come close to matching his finishing prowess but the difference was that Rush's goals often resulted in silverware. Rush did not just make the difference, he often was the difference.

4. John Barnes

"Barnes won it. He won it from Brock. He's got Beardsley going to his left. But still Barnes. That's a fabulous individual goal."

So said John Motson as Liverpool's greatest modern day winger scored arguably his greatest goal for the club in a 4-0 win over Queens Park Rangers in the autumn of 1987.

I've only used that piece of commentary because I can remember it as strongly now as I could back then. Barnes was so brilliant, so talented and so eye-catching that he demanded attention. Even the way he was described by others captured the imagination.

For me, no other Liverpool player has enjoyed back-to-back seasons of the standards that Barnes set between 1987-89. In full flight he was simply unstoppable, beating defenders for fun with a rare combination of mesmerising skill and searing power.

"Players like John Barnes come along just once in a lifetime," the legendary Tom Finney once said and there was a whole generation of full-backs who would painfully agree.

In the most free-flowing, expressive Liverpool side of all, Barnes was the stand-out performer, a player who could win games on his own and bring supporters to their feet with a swivel of his hips.

2= Graeme Souness

No-one could dominate a midfield like Souness. Never mind the iron fist in the velvet glove, the fiery Scot wore an iron glove that he used to pummel opponents into submission.

His physical presence means his technical ability is often overlooked, though, and that is a big mistake as there have been few players before or since with Souness' mastery of a football. There are even those who played in the same Liverpool team who believe his influence surpassed that of Dalglish.

What is clear is that without Souness, his clever passing and ability as a minder, Dalglish's influence would probably not have been as profound as it was. With his trademark perm and bushy moustache, Souness was always going to stand out but it was the ferocity of his tackles and capacity to dictate play that caught the eye most.

Quite simply, he was beyond intimidation. From grabbing Jimmy Case by the scruff of the neck to performing like a midfield colossus in Rome's Olympic Stadium, Souness was rarely anything but a dominant figure.

"He was a player you admire because he got the best out of you as well as himself," Joe Fagan once said. "He had some battles in midfield with players and nobody got the better of Souness." 

When people talk of the great midfield players of the 1980s, Souness' should be the name at the top of their list. He was the main man in more ways than one.

2= Steven Gerrard

Perhaps in time - and maybe sooner rather than later - Gerrard will come to be seen as Liverpool's greatest ever player. Jamie Carragher already believes that time has come and it is easy to see why.

Unlike Dalglish, the Huyton-born midfielder has not had the benefit of playing in great Liverpool sides. He has played in good teams and occasionally very good ones, but he has not spent his Liverpool career surrounded by brilliance, which makes his achievements all the more remarkable.

From the moment Gerrard burst into the team as a teenager, clearing shots off the line in the Merseyside derby and dominating much more experienced opponents, it was clear that he was a force of nature.

That he has sustained his brilliance for well over a decade and remains as important to Liverpool at 32 as he was at 22 underlines the impact that he has made on the club he supported as a boy.

Gerrard could - and those outside the club would argue, should - have left Liverpool on several occasions. His loyalty has been tested by some of Europe's greatest and most successful clubs but he always turned his back on such opportunities.

Why? Because nothing drives him on more than the thought of being successful with Liverpool, a trait which is as evident now as it ever was.

To put it bluntly, without Gerrard's desire, talent and drive, the greatest night in Liverpool's history would not have happened - for not only would they have slumped in Istanbul, they probably wouldn't even have been there in the first place.

1. Kenny Dalglish

To be the best player in the best Liverpool team takes something very special and Dalglish was as special as they come - so good that Bill Shankly admitted he would have quit as manager had he been in charge of Celtic when they agreed to sell the forward in August 1977.

"I would have moved heaven and earth to keep him," Shankly said. "I would rather have quit and got out of the game altogether than sold a player of his brilliance."

Celtic's loss was Liverpool's gain and in the decade following his transfer Dalglish established himself as one of the world's best players. "When I was growing up my hero was Di Stefano," George Best once said. "Kenny for me was on a par with Di Stefano. That is the best compliment I can pay him." 

Such compliments came as standard during a glittering playing career but the tribute that best captured his brilliance fittingly came from the manager who signed him.

"Of all the players I have played alongside, managed and coached in more than forty years at Anfield, he is the most talented," Bob Paisley said. "When Kenny shines, the whole team is illuminated."

Paisley's last line is the one that illustrates why Dalglish has the edge - he didn't just stand out as an individual, he made the players around him better with his intelligence, generosity and creativity.

In the ultimate Liverpool team he was the ultimate Liverpool player and that, in my eyes, means he is first among equals.