NewsLiverpool's Greatest - No.91: Danny Murphy
Years: 1997-2004
Appearances: 249
Goals: 44
Trophies: League Cup (2001, 2003), FA Cup (2001), UEFA Cup (2001), UEFA Super Cup (2001)
One surefire way of enshrining your name in Liverpool FC history is to score three (THREE) winning goals at Manchester United.
Danny Murphy achieved that tremendous feat and much more during his seven-year spell as part of the Anfield set-up.
The industrious and clever midfielder – who would be used on the right, on the left and centrally – was brought to the Reds from Crewe Alexandra but would have to wait a couple of years to make his mark.
Amid no small competition for places in Gerard Houllier’s team, Murphy was a regular throughout the treble-winning season of 2000-01.
He featured in 47 of 63 games as the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup were all lifted and Champions League qualification was secured, contributing 10 goals too.
One of those strikes was a free-kick to clinch a 1-0 league victory at Old Trafford and begin a sequence of déjà vu for the Englishman.
Murphy hooked in a dramatic late winner (again to make it 1-0) when Liverpool visited their fierce rivals a season later – and repeated the trick a third time (you guessed it, 1-0), on this occasion from the penalty spot, near the end of 2003-04.
“Some of the lads were saying to me, ‘What’s going on here, how have you done it again?’” he later recalled. “And I was just like, ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know what’s going on, this is weird!’”
By then, Murphy was nearing the 250-appearance mark at the club and had added a second League Cup medal to a collection that also included UEFA Super Cup success.
Following the 2004 change in the dugout that saw Rafael Benitez replace Houllier, though, his time with the Reds came to a perhaps premature conclusion as he moved to Charlton Athletic.
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