Pep Guardiola once said: 'Those three for Liverpool are good… they scare me, they are so dangerous.'
The Manchester City manager, on his way to a record-breaking 100-point Premier League season in 2018, paced a near-empty dressing room chatting with his analyst Carles Planchart and right-hand man Domenec Torrent. It felt like a therapy session.
We've become accustomed to Guardiola's nervous tics in recent months and – although he has never been a calm soul – the best coach of his generation was shown shaking in his boots ahead of a meeting with Liverpool that season.
He had reason to scratch his head and lose sleep. City were torn apart by Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane as Liverpool defeated them 5-1 in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Good things come in threes and for many Liverpool fans, no trio will ever topple the attacking triumvirate that has propelled the Reds to a sixth European Cup and first English league title in thirty years.
There was the ruthless scoring, the mesmerizing interplay, the choreographed dance routines to celebrate goals for the Kop. The good old days for many younger fans. If someone was having a bad afternoon, the others would step into action and push Jurgen Klopp's side to victory.
Now Arne Slot has put together a new group of attacking superstars to propel Liverpool towards a second Premier League title.
Salah, 32 and older like a fine wine, remains the centerpiece of the group and he is now joined by Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo.
They played a total of 77 games in all competitions this season and scored 43 goals. That's a goal every 119 minutes. In the 2019/20 title-winning campaign, Salah, Firmino and Mane scored 57 goals in 147 games, a goal every 206 minutes.
At the current blistering pace, that number will be surpassed by Salah, Diaz and Gakpo in the first weeks of 2025. Scoring all 14 goals needed to catch up in Sunday's match against Manchester United at Anfield could be too big an ask, even against Ruben Amorim's shaky defence.
No one says the current trio is better than that famous front three, but they combine perfectly, playing together and prompting the traveling Kop to break into the old terrace and sing Poetry in Motion. Judging by their post-match selfies, they also make for quite the bromance. That couldn't always be said about Salah's relationship with Mane.
“I saw firsthand the looks, the grimaces, the body language, the dissatisfaction when one was angry with the other,” Firmino wrote of the pair in his recent autobiography. 'I could feel it. At those moments I was the link between them in our attacking game and the firefighter.
“For many, that disagreement between Sadio and Mo was the first – for some the first and the last. But it had been brewing since last season. It was my instinct and my duty to defuse the situation. “Pour water on the fire, never gasoline.”
The Brazilian discussed an incident at Burnley in August 2019 when the wingers clashed over perceived greed. He wrote: 'Sadio wasn't just angry at being knocked out – Mo had tried to take a shot on goal when he had a clear pass to Mane, who was free in the penalty area.
'My English isn't great so I can't tell you exactly what Mane shouted as he got away. But it was nothing fun! James Milner tried to calm him down, but Sadio remained furious, sitting furiously on the bench and making repeated gestures.'
One of the things Slot had at the top of his list when he arrived this summer was to make Liverpool less dependent on Salah. His dip in form at the end of last season was a major reason why their title bid crumbled.
The Anfield hierarchy had noted Slot's tendency to improve at Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar, with Santiago Gimenez transforming under the Dutchman from goal-shy to productive and Luis Sinisterra going from castaway to £20m signing.
Gakpo and Diaz were hardly bad last season, but their wasteful finishing was frustrating. Diaz is already just one goal behind last season's total of 13 in all competitions, and Gakpo is on a hot streak that leaves him just five behind his 16-goal return in 2023/24.
They scored 23 goals between them, adding to Salah's 20 and 24 assists. Salah has been directly involved in 54 percent of Liverpool's goals this season (37 of 68), although that percentage was higher before the festive period.
Diaz and Gakpo's goals-per-minute ratios are nearly identical under Slot. Sorry, Cody, your friend outpaces you by a nose – the Colombian leads the Dutchman 128 minutes to 129. Both have improved exponentially; Diaz scored every 278 minutes last season, Gakpo every 188.
An interesting aspect of their improvement is that Diaz is in the lead at number 9 and Gakpo is on the left. Since joining from PSV two years ago, Gakpo has regularly played as a central striker with Diaz, who joined PSV three years ago, on the wing. But Diaz started his first game as number 9 against Bayer Leverkusen on Bonfire Night and has been delivering fireworks ever since, with Slot recently saying: 'I played there against Lucho for a reason. I expected him to do well, but the fact that he played so well was even a surprise to me.'
In addition to a great attacking trio, all good teams also have stars waiting in the wings. Liverpool's depth in that area is certainly better now than in 2019/20, with Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez the obvious replacements.
Jota is seen by many fans as the best finisher at the club and Nunez, despite all the criticism, is a useful player to have and causes problems for the defenders. There is also 2020 Euro 2020 winner Federico Chiesa, although the Italian has struggled with his fitness since joining from Juventus for €10 million this summer.
Liverpool's 18-year-old striker Jayden Danns is now often on the bench after missing the first half of the season with a back injury. He is highly rated and can contribute if needed, although he could be loaned out in January if a good offer comes along. Championship Derby is excited.
Salah, Diaz and Gakpo cannot yet be considered as good as the formidable three of Salah, Firmino and Mane – the sample size is too small – but this trio combines perfectly to form a title-winning recipe that Slot can hope for.
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