Best Liverpool squad ever? It’s the depth

Calling it our best Liverpool squad ever isn’t about putting this XI above Paisley, Kenny or Klopp. It’s about something simpler: the options behind the starters, and how rare that is at Anfield.

When I said this might be our best squad ever, a few people took it as me putting today’s starting XI above the iconic sides. That’s not what I mean. I’m not here pretending I can rank an Arne Slot XI against the great teams of Paisley or Dalglish, especially when I didn’t watch them live.

The point is squad depth. The boring, practical stuff. The quality you can bring on. The level you can rotate without the whole thing falling apart.

Starting XIs win matches, squads win seasons

Liverpool have had brilliant teams before, obviously. But for long stretches of football history, “depth” wasn’t even part of the conversation like it is now. Benches were tiny. Substitutions were limited. You built an XI and you ran with it, even if the drop-off behind the first choices was steep.

So when people hear “best squad”, they imagine it’s a slight on the peak quality of the past. It isn’t. It’s just looking at the full set of options and asking: how many good footballers have we realistically got to solve problems across a season?

History backs up the depth argument

Take the forward options as an example. That 1981 European Cup-winning side under Paisley is rightly held up as a gold standard. But the attacking cover on the day is telling: Howard Gayle was the forward option on the bench.

Then look at the 1988 Dalglish side, the one everyone points to for how it played. You could only name two substitutes back then and Liverpool didn’t even have a forward on the bench that day. Over the season the other forward options included Paul Walsh and John Durnin. Different era. Different rules. But it still underlines the same thing: the supporting cast could be thin.

Why modern depth feels like a luxury

Even Klopp’s title-winning 2020 side, as glorious as it was, had a bench that could feel a bit “make do” in attack. Origi and Shaqiri were the main backups, and Minamino arrived mid-season. They did their jobs and had their moments, but nobody is pretending they were a second elite front line.

Compare that to the kind of names being discussed as options now, and you can see why some of us get carried away. If your idea of a “backup” is closer to a genuine alternative rather than a last resort, that changes how you manage minutes, form and injuries across 50-odd games.

People can still disagree with the headline claim, fair enough. I’m just saying: if we’re talking squads, not elevens, Liverpool rarely had this sort of depth.

Written by MK Scouser: 15 January 2026