Oliver Kay: My 100 PWSTK Top 5

1. Kenny Dalglish

Who else could it be? When I was growing up, everyone dreamed of being Kenny Dalglish, and that's at a time when there was no great hype about individual players. No praise is high enough for what he achieved as player and manager for Liverpool - or indeed as a man, helping the families cope in the aftermath of Hillsborough. A highlights package can't do him justice. Just look at what Liverpool won after that period and look who was at the centre of everything. Immortalised by the fans in 'The Fields of Anfield Road' and rightly so. Quite simply the best and most influential player in the club's history. And that's saying something.

2. Steven Gerrard

A lot of polls like this tend to reflect current thinking rather than a historical context, but it isn't stretching it to say that Gerrard will be remembered as an all-time great at Liverpool for what he has achieved over the past few years. If I was a kid growing up in 50 years time and I read about this guy, I'd be gobsmacked. The will-he/won't-he transfer sagas have probably added to that aura, to be honest. Can you imagine if he'd left in 2004 or 2005? He'd have been remembered as a good player who could have been a Liverpool legend but ruined it all by walking out. Thank goodness he didn't. It's hard to think of a player who has shaken the Kop so often in recent times and in such a variety of ways. And the great thing is that he's still only 26 and he still hasn't reached his full potential.

3. Graeme Souness

Only made it to number nine in the actual poll, which is probably down to what happened after he returned to the club as manager in 1991. He only ever seemed to shake the Kop for a lot of the wrong reasons after that. But if you simply look at his playing career, he was magnificent - not so much the Steven Gerrard of his day but maybe a cross between Roy Keane and Xabi Alonso - and, like Dalglish, at the forefront of the most successful British team of all time.

4. John Barnes

If you were being hyper-critical, you could make a case for saying that Barnes only ever had two truly great seasons for Liverpool, the title-winning campaigns of 1988 and 1990. But when I say they were truly great seasons, I mean that. I've never seen an attacking player produce so much brilliance over the course of a season before or since. Thierry Henry for Arsenal is the only one I can think of who has come close. He was just an incredible player for Liverpool. I still find it bizarre that he struggled for England but, more than that, he was an influential one in terms of ridding Anfield of the spectre of racism in the 1980s.

5. Ian Rush

The heart says Robbie Fowler, who is a Liverpool legend in his own right, but I've got to go for Rush. Three hundred and forty-seven goals in 660 appearances - incredible. I was always more of a Dalglish man, but I remember being devastated the day Rush left for Juventus and ecstatic the day he came back. I don't think he ever quite captured the hearts of Liverpool fans in the way that Fowler did, but I've got to have him in the top five simply because of the number of goals he scored, which helped the most successful Liverpool team ever become the most successful British team ever.

To discuss the Top 5 as picked by Oliver Kay of The Times or our 100 PWSTK project in general, click here>>