#100PWSTK: Ged Rea's top 10

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 final few days 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.

Club statistician Ged Rea is the latest to reveal his top 10...

It was like having to choose your favourite sibling. When deciding on how I would address this task I had to try to lay down criteria.

The players that got me off my seat most regularly - those with the biggest impact, maybe? In the end I had to go for those I thought were the very best of the best. Usually I prefer to assess 'greatness' once a career has ended but in this exercise one current player demanded inclusion.

Any one of almost a dozen Reds heroes could also have sneaked into the list. And on another day the 'top 10' could be different. Ask me again tomorrow. So here goes...

10. Roger Hunt

Liverpool's record goalscorer in the league has to have a strong case for inclusion. He was the only player to be 'knighted' by the Kop and it was 'Sir' Roger's 41 goals (still a season record) which propelled the Reds into the First Division in 1962.

Apart from his goalscoring prowess he worked like a Trojan, a player who did literally roll up his sleeves and impose himself on a game. I really admire players who are highly talented yet quiet and unassuming, and Hunt was one of those.

He will always be remembered fondly for his goal in the 1965 FA Cup final and the following year scored in the Cup Winners' Cup final. And he won the World Cup with somebody or other!

9. John Barnes

Jamaican-born but played to the Samba beat. He was the best player in arguably the club's best ever team (1987-88) and was up there for me with Maradona as the best player in the world in his first two seasons at Anfield.

He had amazing strength and would slalom down the left wing leaving defenders in his wake. It felt like we won every home game 4-0 in that first season.

Even when injury robbed him of his pace (ironically on England duty) he reinvented himself as a central midfielder of the highest order - the injury could not rob him of quickness of thought.

The biggest disappointment as a Liverpool fan was not being able to see Barnes and that fabulous team destroy Europe's finest defences. We could have been singing "In Istanbul, we won it NINE times".  

8. Billy Liddell

The only player in the list I never saw play in the flesh but more than worthy of inclusion. The club was known as "Liddellpool" during its time in the Second Division in the 1950s.

Throughout that decade the Reds won nothing but the crowds still flocked to Anfield, largely to watch the Scottish maestro.

Fast, direct, two-footed, with the strength of an ox, he was one of only two players selected by Great Britain to face the Rest of the World in two games - Stanley Matthews being the other.

More than any other he is the player I would have loved to have seen grace the Premier League, playing on billiard table-like surfaces with a beach ball by comparison and tackling outlawed. He would have sold out any ground in the country.

7. Ian Rush

Our finest ever goalscorer and yet he was also the first line of defence, lulling opponents into a false sense of security before robbing them like a subtle pickpocket. He scored all kinds of goals and the partnership he forged with Kenny Dalglish bordered on the psychic.

And yet if Bob Paisley had granted his transfer request before his career had got off the ground, Liverpool's recent history could have been so different.

He was the scourge of all Evertonians with 25 goals in 36 derby appearances and Reds' fans will never forget his four goals at Goodison in 1982 or his double in the '86 FA Cup final.

Like the man he mentored, Robbie Fowler, he had the knack of finding the inside of the net with unerring accuracy. Quiet to the point of being shy he did his talking on the pitch but his goalscoring feats scream from the record books.

 6. Emlyn Hughes

If ever a player encapsulated a nickname it was 'Crazy Horse'. He was one of the most enthusiastic players the club has ever produced and had a smile as wide as the Mersey. He could run all day long and had a venomous shot with either foot. He was versatile enough to play in midfield and anywhere along the back.

He played like a schoolboy in the playground. His success came as no surprise to Bill Shankly, who while driving the 19-year old Hughes into Liverpool was stopped by a policeman. Shanks said, "Don't you know who is in this car? This is the future England captain."

Two of the goals that endeared him to Liverpool fans were the late double he netted at Goodison in March 1973. He remains the only Englishman ever to captain two European Cup-winning teams.

5. Ray Clemence

'Clem' just edges Elisha Scott as Liverpool's greatest ever goalkeeper. He was a 'sweeper' 'keeper with marvellous athleticism. His greatest asset was his immense concentration. Under-employed in games, he would spend his time sprinting across the width of his own box while his teammates were battering the opposition down the other end. 

His penalty save in the UEFA Cup final at Anfield in 1973 from Jupp Heynckes helped the Reds claim their first European trophy and another crucial save from Uli Stielike in Rome with the scores level was the turning point in Liverpool's first European Cup final success.

He restricted his deputies to a total of just six league appearances in 11 years at Anfield. He holds the club record for most clean sheets (323) in his 665 games - a record that may never be broken. How did he only win 61 England caps while Peter Shilton won 125?

4. Alan Hansen

The tall athletic centre-back is for me the most skilful defender the club has had - the "Scottish Beckenbauer". The sight of him performing drag backs in his own box was a new phenomenon for Liverpool fans in the late '70s.

And once our hearts had calmed didn't we lap it up? His surges from the back towards the front line were a sight to behold. He was calmness personified.

He was an integral part of the back four that conceded just 16 goals in 1978-79 but could chip in with classy goals himself - a rocket against Norwich and a couple against Manchester United spring to mind.

Ludicrously, his glittering career was rewarded with only 26 caps for Scotland. Yes that's right! TWENTY-SIX. Shame on the Scottish FA.

3. Steven Gerrard

If this survey was to find Liverpool Football Club's most influential player it is likely Steven would win it hands down. He is the archetypal Reds fan on the pitch, a boy who quickly became a man in the glare of the first-team spotlight.

He symbolises everything good about the modern game - athletic, powerful, dynamic, versatile. He is not a vocal captain nor does he need to be as he communicates by his example. Actions speak louder than words for our skipper. 

Only two players have had a FA Cup final named after them - Stanley Matthews in 1953 and Steven Gerrard in 2006. Among his many heroic performances was that final against West Ham in Cardiff when he dragged his team off the canvas despite himself, by his own admission, almost being out on his feet.

There aren't many finer sights than seeing Gerrard in full-flight, eating up the turf and leaving opponents in his wake. As I write he is closing in on seventh place on the all-time Liverpool scorers list and is the highest placed midfielder. An exceptional record for an exceptional player.

2. Graeme Souness

When, for me, you are Liverpool's finest ever midfield player and greatest captain then only a player as good as Kenny can keep you off top spot. 'Souey' possessed "an iron fist in a velvet glove". If opposition teams wanted a scrap, he would fight and win. If they wanted to play, he would outplay them.

He led from the front - an organiser, a soldier, a warrior. You would never want to return to the dressing room with him in your team not having given 100 per cent. He could pass long and short with both feet and had a shot like an exocet. And as for his tackling...ouch!

He perhaps kept his two best games for his final two European appearances in a red shirt. After breaking the jaw of an opponent at Anfield in the European Cup semi-final in 1984 he went into the 'lion's den' in Bucharest in the return.

With fans baying for his blood, he didn't wince silencing them with a supreme display of class and arrogance. Then he repeated the feat in the final at the Stadio Olimpico as the Reds beat Roma on their own patch.

How good was he? So good it took two excellent players, Jan Molby and Steve McMahon, to replace him.

1. Kenny Dalglish

Selecting the 'number one' was the easiest decision thanks to Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish.

Some of the legends in life are known solely by their first name - Seve, Elvis (who died days after Dalglish signed) to name but two and Kenny is in that deified bracket. He is the greatest British player of the last 40 years since George Best graced the 'beautiful game'.

He was the first Liverpool player I truly, deeply idolised. He had everything - ability, strength, humility, and not least a beaming smile. He also possessed that precious commodity that only the greatest players have - time.

He was always two or three passes or frames of play ahead of the opposition. Check out his goal against Crystal Palace at Anfield in December 1979. He had three Palace players treading on his toes on the edge of the box but still managed to float a low chip with astonishing precision into the far corner of the Kop goal. Genius.

He even became player-manager, winning the double in his first season. A script not even Hans Christian Andersen would have dared write.

I would have walked a million miles for one of his smiles, never mind goals. Simply. The King.