Football Special Edition - Part 5: Liverpool’s Best Strikers
John Aldridge: John Aldridge became a necessity as soon as ‘The Reds’ lost one of their most prized and loved strikers, Ian Rush to the Juventus.
Liverpool was losing its talismanic and biggest goal scoring machine to the Italian side and this happened at the end of the 1986-7 season and when this happened it left a hole in the team, which could only be filled with another experienced and proven replacement for Ian.
It was never expected that a replacement could be found that would be an equivalent of Ian Rush but when they added John Aldridge things at least got less gloomy. Another astonishing attribute of the new addition was that the player had a very significant physical resemblance with Ian Rush.
John Aldridge got signed by Liverpool on the twenty seventh of January 1987 for a transfer fee of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. He immediately made the first team line up and initially worked as Rush’s partner. Though ‘The Reds’ finished the season without winning any trophies that summer. Also the club got a Wembley defeat while playing against Arsenal in the League Cup Final and Aldridge was not allowed to play in this final as he was ineligible.
John Aldridge made his Liverpool review on the twenty first of Feburary 1987, when he came on as a substitute in the forty sixth minute of the game. He originally came to replace Carig Johnson in the game and it was a two to two League draw against Aston Villa while playing at their home, Villa Park.
Aldridge scored the first goal for his club only a week later on the twenty eight of February 1987, the player scored in the sixtieth minute of the game being played at Anfield. This became the only goal scored throughout the game and Liverpool won the match against Southampton with a score one to nil and won the league match.
As soon as Ian Rush left, Aldridge went on his goal scoring streak and scored twenty six goals and this turned out to be a spectacular season for ‘The Reds’ and this streak included the star player scoring at least one goal in each of the first nine matches.
John Aldridge was also linked to other new signings like John Barnes and Peter Beardsley; these players formed one of the most interesting attacking forward duos in Liverpool’s history as right after these new guns were deployed Liverpool only lost two matches in the League championship season and went unbeaten for an astonishingly high number of twenty nine matches.
John Aldridge’s stay at Anfield was a very memorable time for Liverpool and he played a hundred and four games for the club and scored sixty three goals and fifty out of them were in the Football League.
John Toshak: This proved to be a major coup for the Liverpool football club as Bill Shankly somehow managed to sign this star striker from Cardiff for one hundred and ten thousand pounds in November 1970.
This is how the celebrated Toshak and Keegan partnership became possible, as both the players seemed to have formed a telepathic means of communication over time which proved to be exceptionally effective.
This forward duo was so effective, they seemed to pass through the opposing team’s defences with such ease that it just seemed ridiculous for them to be there. It made spectators feel as though the defenders would do a better job if they would just leave the rear of the field empty.
(Continued in the 6th Part of the Article)
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