Mohamed Salah and Liverpool's accidentally elite front three - 'They were never best friends'

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For an attacking triumvirate that scored nearly 500 goals, the advent of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino as a Liverpool front three was more accidental than by design.The story of Salah initially opting to join Chelsea over the Reds in January 2014 has been well documented over time and his eventual move to Anfield, three years later, was not exactly nailed on either, given Jurgen Klopp had to be talked into it by influential figures in the club's recruitment department that summer.“The scouting department was really behind me, and wanted to do it even earlier so that nobody could jump in” Klopp said in 2017. At £29m, which was huge money for a club like Liverpool 11 years ago, he looked like an enormous flop, prior to Klopp's emergence.Sadio Mane, the first real big-money signing of the Klopp era at around £30m in 2016, had also been previously shunned by the German during his days at Borussia Dortmund.

Klopp once revealed that the Senegal star "looked like a rapper" when they first met, leading the then BVB boss to conclude: "I don't have time for this".So the idea that the two electric African wingers would always dovetail to devastating effect with the brilliant Brazilian who knitted everything together immaculately was never a given at Anfield.But when supporters inevitably look back on the various forwards who Salah played alongside during his nine-year spell at Liverpool, it will be the Egyptian's combinations with Mane and Firmino that will elicit the fondest memories.Their first season together yielded 91 goals as Liverpool swept all before them en route to a Champions League final in Kyiv. Salah, quite remarkably, registered 44 in his maiden campaign, while Firmino scored a career-best 27, and Mane reached the 20-goal milestone with his equaliser against Real Madrid in Ukraine as hopes of a sixth European Cup were eventually dashed.That European dream was only deferred for a year when Salah blasted home the opening goal from a penalty Mane won, as Klopp's Reds sealed the Champions League in Madrid against Tottenham Hotspur.By the summer of 2020, Salah, Mane and Firmino had fired Liverpool to the Premier League title, after they also secured the UEFA Super Cup and a first-ever FIFA Club World Cup in 2019.

Their roles as wide forwards emerged as football was evolving tactically into a game where players on the flanks were tasked with scoring the majority of the goals rather than the No.9s who led the line.And it was perhaps the competitive rivalry that undoubtedly existed between Salah and Mane, two of the greatest African players of all time, that drove the standards at times during that glittering period.A flashpoint at Burnley in 2019, when Mane was left clearly frustrated at Salah's failure to pass to him in a 3-0 win, was often held up - perhaps unfairly over the years - as a fact that both players didn't always see eye to eye.Although that specific incident has likely been overblown given how often the pair linked up in the years that followed, those who were there never denied that the duo fed off at least some tension.“They were never best friends," Firmino wrote in his book. I'm like this."Salah himself, speaking in 2024, reflected: "We both give everything we have to help the team win.