Liverpool FC's Great Striking Partnerships, No.3

The King and All You Need

It may be - no, it was - the best partnership of them all, and one which coincided with an extended period of huge success for the club. In fact it contributed greatly to it. Rush and Dalglish were a perfectly synchronised pairing, foil and counterfoil, Dalglish deeper-lying and possessed of remarkable vision and almost a sense of vectors, able to see the angles and slide the ball into Rush’s path. The Welshman for his part seemed to know exaactly when, where the pass would come and time his run accordingly.

But for the first season of Kenny Dalglish’s time as a player at Liverpool, he had no strike partner. At this point, Liverpool were playing a 4-man midfield of Case, McDermott, Ray Kennedy and Callaghan - all but the latter regular goal scorers. Up front, Kenny only had Steve Heighway for company, and he was basically a left-winger. David Fairclough also played a few games. When he did eventually gain a strike partner, it was not the gangly, gauche, moustachioed North Walian but David Johnson, first signed almost a year before Kenny’s arrival as John Toshack’s replacement, and already an England international.

Scouser Johnson cost Liverpool £200,000 from Ipswich Town, having begun his career at Everton. But he spent most of Kenny’s first season in the reserves, and also had injury problems that kept him out of contention, not least torn knee ligaments in April 1978 which caused him to miss the European Cup final in May at Wembley against Bruges, which was won by Dalglish’s goal - of which more later. When Dalglish and Johnson finally got together, their partnership thrived. League titles in 1978/9 and 1979/80 followed on their watch, and Johnson was to score 78 goals for Liverpool in under six seasons - no small contribution.

Kenny Dalglish

Probably the club’s greatest ever player was signed by Bob Paisley in summer 1977 to replace the departing hero Kevin Keegan, who had fetched a record fee of £500,000 to move to Hamburg, taking his newly won European Cup and league champions medals with him.

Keegan was going to take some replacing, but paying Celtic £440,000 for the 26-year old Glaswegian, and pocketing £60,000 change from the two transactions, was a masterstroke by Paisley and Liverpool. Manchester United also wanted Dalglish and offered him more money, but the player wanted Liverpool, the best team in England and Europe at the time.

Those who saw Dalglish make his Liverpool debut on August 1977, at Wembley in the Charity Shield against the Manchester United who had coveted Kenny and had stolen the FA Cup from the League and European champions last May - “daylight robbery, daylight robbery, give us back our FA Cup” sang the Liverpool supporters - had any doubts eased. Although the game finished goalless, Dalglish oozed class. The United fans chanted "What a waste of money". Oh the irony!

In his league debut at Middlesbrough a week later, on the opening day of the 1977/8 season, it took Kenny all of 7 minutes to open his account, although that game also finished a draw, 1-1.

His home debut came four days later, against Newcastle. He scored, and put Liverpool on their way to a 2-0 win. He scored again in the next match, a 3-0 home win against West Brom, and the next, a 2-0 win at home to Chelsea. The pattern was established nice and early. You didn’t have to walk a million miles for one of his goals, you just had to wait another week.

Kevin Who?

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