Joe Gomez is probably not within the place he would have hoped in his seventh marketing campaign with Liverpool, however the defender has no less than joined one unique membership…
Liverpool’s likeable No. 12 has struggled for the sport time he might need anticipated this season, with the well-managed health of a resurgent Joel Matip and the breakthrough of Ibrahima Konate pushing him down the pecking order.
However in his 15 appearances up to now, Gomez has managed to interrupt by way of into an unique – if unenviable – quintet.
Since Brendan Rodgers introduced him to Anfield from Charlton in 2015, Gomez has gained 5 main trophies with the Reds and even worn the captain’s armband twice, but after 136 first-team appearances, he’s nonetheless ready for his first aim for the membership.
Having come shut on numerous events with out getting over the road (actually), earlier this season Gomez broke into the highest 5 for many appearances and not using a single first-team aim, going all the best way again to 1892.
Clearly, that is together with outfield gamers solely – not that Alisson would care!
Right here, we check out the others who make up the highest 5, in addition to the 2 males Gomez has overtaken this season…
7. Willie Metal
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 128
Not an excessive amount of is thought about Willie Metal, who made 128 appearances for Liverpool through the barren Thirties.
Remarkably constant, he missed solely 4 league video games between his December 1931 debut and the top of the 1933/34 season.
For all his reliability, nevertheless, he had did not bag a single aim by the point of his 1935 departure to Birmingham, for whom he additionally by no means scored.
After a 10-year spell of administration in Scotland, Metal left soccer behind in 1964, and handed away in 1990.
6. Jim Harley
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 131
A tricky Scotsman who made his debut six months after Metal’s departure, regardless of being at Anfield for 14 years Harley managed solely three extra appearances than his compatriot.
The small matter of the Second World Warfare performed a big half on this, throughout which Harley served as a Royal Navy Commando and earned army honours at Dunkirk, though he additionally discovered time to play 62 wartime fixtures for the Reds, scoring three targets.
Whereas he by no means notched an official strike, Harley gained the league in 1947, and was identified for a weird number of extracurricular actions – together with successful the New 12 months’s Day Powderhall Dash, a legendary Scottish athletics competitors, and being arrested greater than as soon as for ‘brawling’.
One team-mate even recalled how he would flip as much as coaching bloody and bruised from a number of fights the night time earlier than.
It actually was a distinct period…
5. Joe Gomez
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 136 (and counting)
At solely 24, there’s nonetheless loads of time for Gomez to expunge himself from this checklist, however with rumours of a summer season exit turning into extra believable, he may need to get his title on the scoresheet sooner slightly than later.
Scoring the winner at Wembley? The semi-final strike to take us to Paris? No time like the current, Joey.
4. Tom Cooper
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 160
Barely forward of our present centre-back is Tom Cooper, a Stoke-born proper again versus a fez-wearing comic.
One other Thirties common, Cooper (referred to as Snowball on account of his silvery hair) had suffered from accidents in a approach that Gomez would absolutely empathise with, having each his knee cartilages eliminated while at Derby County.
However, he managed a reputable 160 video games for Liverpool and 15 for England (who he additionally captained) earlier than the outbreak of World Warfare II.
Having enlisted within the Royal Army Police, Cooper was tragically killed aged simply 36, when his motorcycle collided with a bus.
Described as “one of many best full-backs English soccer has identified,” Cooper left an off-field legacy, with all despatch riders required to put on a bike helmet because of his dying.
His is a reputation that ought to due to this fact be remembered for a skilful, however sadly truncated, profession.
3. Stephane Henchoz
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 205
A way more acquainted title for many Liverpool followers, Stephane Henchoz was delivered to L4 by Gerard Houllier in 1999, in the identical summer season as Sami Hyypia, Titi Camara, Vladimir Smicer and Dietmar Hamann.
However whereas these 4 went on to hit 75 targets between them over the following 10 years, Henchoz made 205 appearances with out as soon as etching his title onto the scoresheet.
That’s to not say his five-and-a-half years at Anfield weren’t successful, because the Swiss greater than performed his half within the 2000/01 treble season, and the Tremendous Cup and Charity Protect victories that adopted.
The FA Cup Closing on the Millennium Stadium was a very memorable event, with Henchoz committing a pair of handballs that mercifully went unpunished by referee Steve Dunn!
A rock on the again alongside Hyypia, the 2 H’s practically helped Liverpool to the league title in 2002, however sadly Henchoz’s profession grew to become one thing of a metaphor for Houllier’s Liverpool, really fizzling out in underwhelming circumstances.
Accidents took their toll, Igor Biscan took his place, and though there have been intermittent flashes of success, Henchoz’s greatest days have been behind him and he moved to Celtic in January 2005 after Rafa Benitez made clear he was surplus to necessities.
There was one closing swansong for Henchoz, although, with a aim eventually in a pre-season pleasant in Connecticut in 2004 – towards Celtic, satirically.
Temporary spells at Wigan and Blackburn adopted earlier than he retired in 2008 to take up a profession in teaching, sporadically taking on the reins at numerous groups in his native Switzerland in between sporadic appearances for the Liverpool Legends.
2. Rob Jones
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 243
One other comparatively current face, Rob Jones adopted within the footsteps of his league title-winning grandfather Invoice when he made his debut for the Reds in 1991 – in a Man of the Match efficiency towards Man United, no much less!
Jones went on to interrupt into Graeme Souness’ aspect as an everyday starter, together with each the 1992 FA Cup and 1995 League Cup finals.
Jones has a popularity as one other participant whose profession was derailed by accidents; it’s true that shin splints dominated him out of England’s pitiful exhibiting at Euro ’92, however he had nonetheless made 214 appearances for Liverpool by the top of the 1995/96 season.
It was all downhill from there, although, as recurrent again issues restricted him to simply 29 throughout the following three years, and the followers’ favorite was duly shipped out to West Ham the place, after a single look within the Intertoto Cup, he retired at 28.
“He has to go down as the most effective, if not the perfect, signings I made at Liverpool,” Souness later mirrored, including that “he ought to have been a 15-year man for the membership as a result of he was adequate to try this.”
Maybe if he had, a aim or two would finally have come his approach, however as a substitute, he sits second on this checklist, 4 forward of his grandad’s one-time team-mate Jim Harley.
1. Ephraim Longworth
Liverpool video games and not using a aim: 370
Top-of-the-line defenders in Liverpool’s lengthy historical past, it’s most likely truthful to say that right-back Ephraim Longworth’s document of 370 official video games and not using a aim will most likely by no means be overwhelmed.
Like Cooper, he captained England, turning into the primary Liverpool participant to take action, and like Harley he can declare a small variety of unofficial targets for the membership, scoring three in 121 wartime fixtures through the First World Warfare.
If it wasn’t for that battle, which started 4 years after his debut, he would absolutely have performed much more video games for the membership, besides, he was nonetheless turning out in a purple shirt in 1928 – nearly 18 years after his first look!
Signed from Leyton for a reportedly club-record price, Longworth performed 145 occasions in his first 4 seasons with Liverpool, serving to them to their first FA Cup closing in 1914 and, after the Armistice, successful back-to-back league titles in 1922 and 1923.
When he lastly retired on the finish of the Twenties, Longworth joined the membership’s teaching employees earlier than passing away in 1968.
A pre-war icon, he got here in 72nd in 2006’s ‘100 Gamers Which Shook The Kop’ ballot.
By all accounts stoical about his legendary lack of targets, one can solely marvel what he would make of his trendy successors like Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“I don’t disagree with any full-back going ahead when he sees the open door because it have been,” Longworth informed the Liverpool Echo.
“However as a rule it’s incorrect for full-backs to wander. There may be the important necessity of defence to be remembered and any defence spreadeagled is asking for a peck of hassle.”
Maybe, greater than a century on, Joe Gomez has heeded these phrases?
Let’s hope not, and that Liverpool’s much-loved Londoner is lacing up his inaugural taking pictures boots very quickly.