Written by Liam Blake.

Merseyside has always been a football factory, supplying as many, if not more, professionals to the game than any other region, pro rata. Yet Liverpool have never been a club over-represented by the talent on its doorstep. From its inception, when it recruited from the footballing hotbeds of Scotland, to its heyday selecting players from all corners of the UK and, more latterly, from across the globe. That’s the nature of the business. Celtic’s 1967 European Cup triumph with a squad of fifteen players of whom fourteen were born within a ten-mile radius of Celtic Park remains a glorious anomaly.

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