Liverpool number 8s of the Premier League era — ranked

Dominik Szoboszlai is Liverpool's newest number eight.

The shirt has an iconic association at Anfield — and not because it was once worn by Szoboszlai's fellow Hungarian Istvan Koszma.

READ MORE: Liverpool number 9s of the Premier League era — ranked

Only six men have donned the number eight shirt for Liverpool in the Premier League era. Here are those men, ranked from worst to best.

Absolutely no prizes for guessing number one...

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6. Paul Stewart

Liverpool's first number eight of the new Premier League era is better associated with his time at Spurs and Manchester City.

The Reds actually beat off competition from Manchester United to land the attacking midfielder for £2.3m in 1992, but Stewart ended up scoring just once for the Reds in the league. He was loaned out to Crystal Palace, Wolves and Burnley after an underwhelming debut season.

5. Oyvind Leonhardsen

An impressive attacking midfielder at Wimbledon, Roy Evans splashed out £3.5m for the Norway international — who was a boyhood Liverpool fan — in 1997.

Leonhardsen scored six in 36 in his first season but found game time harder to come by under Gerard Houllier and was sold to Tottenham in 1999.

4. Stan Collymore

A club and league-record arrival in 1995 when he signed for £8.5m, Collymore's first season saw him strike up a prolific partnership with Robbie Fowler, with the pair scoring a combined total of 55 goals in the 1995/96 season.

Despite his talent, Collymore's Liverpool career lasted just two campaigns and no saw major trophies — his sale brought on by discipline and mental health issues, as well as the rise of Michael Owen.

3. Naby Keita

22 years on from Collymore, Liverpool again went big to secure their next number eight, agreeing a deal of upwards of £50m including add-ons for Keita a full year in advance of his eventual 2018 arrival from RB Leipzig.

Touted as one of the Bundesliga's biggest talents, Keita struggled badly with injuries at Liverpool and never played more than 25 Premier League games in a season across five years.

While there were flashes of his quality, the hype never really matched the reality as Keita was seemingly never fit long enough to develop any kind of consistency.

Still, he left the club in 2023 having won the lot.

2. Emile Heskey

Another club-record signing at £11m in March 2000 (a pre-transfer window era) Heskey developed an impressive partnership with fellow England striker Owen, as the Reds won a treble under Houllier in 2000/01.

Heskey netted 22 in 56 in all competitions that season, but was never quite the same in front of goal again.

An archetypal target man, he still remained an important player for Liverpool over the next three years, scoring 60 times and getting 26 assists in 223 games.

1. Steven Gerrard

Who else?

Steven Gerrard is the unfair standard against which all future number eights will be measured.

Liverpool's legendary captain needs no introduction but, as a reminder, he scored 185 times for the Reds across 710 appearances (the third-most outings in club history) and he remains the club's top assist maker in the Premier League (92).

Across his 17 senior seasons, Gerrard won two FA Cups, three League Cups, the UEFA Cup and, of course, the 2005 Champions League.

If Szoboszlai is even an half as successful, he will have done alright.