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Having challenged seriously for the title in 2009 and 2014, Liverpool are back at it again this season.
The Reds are going head to head with one of the best teams this country has ever seen in Manchester City, a side who managed to become centurions last season after racking up 100 points under Pep Guardiola.
Jurgen Klopp’s men are currently just a single point behind the Citizens with just two games to go, and are pinning their hopes on a slip-up from the Mancunians to have any chance of securing a maiden Premier League title.
Liverpool travel to Newcastle this Saturday, where they absolutely have to win to stand any chance of lifting the trophy ahead of City, although they will have to overcome an old friend in Rafa Benitez – a potential banana skin could be on the cards.
Does your club have a legend who is criminally overrated? Fans answer this tough question in the video below…
Benitez was in charge of the Reds when they were vying for the title with Manchester United back in 2009, where his star-studded side consisting of names such as Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano, Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina fell just four points short of the Red Devils.
This season’s points haul suggests the current crop of Liverpool players is far, far better than Benitez’s bunch from 2009. But both that side and the current team consist of world-class footballers, so which players from Klopp’s first-choice XI right now wouldn’t have made Benitez’s title challengers from a decade ago?
Roberto Firmino
As good as the Brazilian is, there is no way that he would get in Benitez’s side from 2009 over Fernando Torres.
The Spaniard is up there with the greatest goalscorers in the club’s history, netting 81 goals in 142 games across a four-year stint at Anfield, where he became a hero before joining Chelsea in a £50m move.
Firmino is vital to the way in which Klopp sets his team up, such is his tireless work rate and pressing ability, but you simply can’t put him in over a world-class goalscorer as Torres was.
The midfield
It is hard to select three individual players from Klopp’s midfield here, as he often rotates the options that he has available to him.
However, whether the German selects Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner, Adam Lallana or Naby Keita, none of them even have a chance of getting in the team ahead of the trio that was Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso.
That trio oozed class. You had the hard-hitting Mascherano breaking opposition attacks up and screening the back four like his life depended on it. Then there was the irresistibly cool Alonso, whose expert passing range and vision helped get Liverpool on the attack every time he received the ball.
Then you had Gerrard, a man who could do it all. The Reds academy graduate could score goals, make them, tackle, get from box to box and had leadership qualities seldom seen in the Premier League.
The current crop are decent, but they don’t have a patch on that iconic trio.
Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Dejan Lovren
Benitez had Sami Hyypiä, Jamie Carragher and Daniel Agger as his centre-backs in 2009, and only one of them will be staying in this combined XI.
Carragher, a player who, like Gerrard, had leadership qualities that you just couldn’t buy, was also an outstanding defender who put his body on the line for Liverpool.
Obviously, you can’t drop Virgil van Dijk, so he stays. However, it is surely up for debate whether or not Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Dejan Lovren make Benitez’s 2009 team with Carragher preventing their passage into the combined XI.
Carragher edges it over any of the aforementioned trio, so him and Van Dijk make the cut.
Take a look at our combination of the two famous Liverpool sides down below. Even if you disagree, one thing is for certain; that is one hell of a team. Just a shame they existed a decade apart…
