Liverpool 9: Top scorers and history of iconic Reds shirt

"If you’re not sure what to do with the ball," Bill Shankly once told Liverpool's number nine of the 1960s Ian St John, "just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards."

Many of Liverpool's centre-forwards over the years have made scoring look as easy as Shankly's instructions sound. The most successful British club in continental football has helped foster the English obsession with number nines by producing some of the best to ever grace the game.

Here is everything you need to know about Liverpool's iconic shirt.

Liverpool's highest scoring number nines

Naturally, the club's all-time leading scorer wore the nine. Ian Rush didn't find the net in any of his first ten appearances for Liverpool but swiftly made up for lost time, rattling in an unrivalled 346 goals across two spells with the club.

Rush was given his chance in the first team after David Johnson picked up an injury at the start of the 1981/82 campaign. Just a matter of months earlier, Johnson had started the triumphant European Cup final against Real Madrid as the club's number nine. It would take Rush less than three years to blitz past Johnson's total Liverpool goal tally.

Despite his reputation as a super sub, David Fairclough started the 1978 European Cup final as Liverpool's nine, one year after Steve Heighway led the line in a victory over Borussia Monchengladbach on the same grand stage.

Years before Shankly forged Liverpool into the most successful team of the 1970s and '80s, his former teammate and compatriot Billy Liddell was the star attraction of a middling side. Blessed with finesse and fearsome firepower, Shankly joked that Liddell "took a nineteen-inch collar shirt" such were the size of his neck muscles.

Liddell's influence was so all-encompassing that the Reds were often dubbed Liddellpool as he shone in the wake of the Second World War. Robbie Fowler may not have had the club named after him but went by 'God'. Perhaps had the prodigious scorer not been lured away to Leeds United, he may have surpassed the tally of Liddell - or even Rush.

Every Liverpool player to wear the number nine shirt in the 21st century

In the five and a half years between January 2011 and August 2016, Liverpool had six different players line up as the club's number nine. Fernando Torres' shock departure triggered this sequence of misfit centre-forwards but the Spaniard's subsequent form for Chelsea gives a golden hue to his £50m sale.

Across Torres' three and a half seasons with Liverpool, he scored 65 goals in 102 Premier League games compared to just 20 in 110 for Chelsea.

While the likes of Iago Aspas, Rickie Lambert and Christian Benteke failed their single-season auditions, Nicolas Anelka proved that it is possible to impress in a short space of time.

The former Arsenal and Real Madrid striker only spent six months on Merseyside but rapidly adapted to his surroundings, offering a fleet-footed alternative to Emile Heskey alongside the similarly jet-heeled Michael Owen. Yet, Liverpool didn't turn his loan into a permanent deal, a decision which club stalwart Jamie Carragher, manager Gerard Houllier and Anelka himself have all admitted that they regret.

Liverpool almost passed up the chance to sign another number nine a decade and a half later. Sporting director Michael Edwards had to battle manager Brendan Rodgers for the acquisition of Roberto Firmino. The coach had been a strong advocate for Benteke and in the end, both arrived in the same summer of 2015.

Benteke lasted one season as Liverpool's nine before Firmino upgraded from number 11 the following summer. Across eight trophy-laden years, Firmino rattled in more than a century of goals but became a favourite of the crowd and Jurgen Klopp for his industrious work off the ball. As a wink to the Brazilian, Edwards named his dog Bobby.

After a year's apprenticeship under Firmino, Darwin Nunez has been tasked with taking on the mantle of Liverpool's number nine. While his immediate predecessor set a high bar and some of the club's best players have donned the digit, Nunez doesn't have to do an awful lot to surpass the achievements of many of the club's number nines from recent years.

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