The Premier League’s record goalscorer has ranked a legendary Liverpool trio as the greatest front three in the division’s 31-year history.
Alan Shearer selected the triumvirate of Mo Salah, Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mane at the top of the pile when it came to three-pronged attacking units in the top flight.
The Newcastle legend was asked for his top 10 along with Gary Lineker and Micah Richards on the latest instalment of Match of the Day Top 10 [via GIVEMESPORT] when he went for the Anfield trio ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney at Manchester United.
His fellow BBC pundits both went with the Old Trafford attack as their greatest Premier League trio, selecting the famous Liverpool forward line of 2017-2022 in second place. All three had the early to mid 2000s Arsenal attack of Robert Pires, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp in third.
As with many such lists, this is a debate which’ll rage on elsewhere and cause inevitable uproar among many who partake in that particular discussion.
However, we certainly approve of Shearer’s selection, and the table below (which shows how many goals Salah, Firmino and Mane scored during their five years together at Liverpool) is a little reminder why:
That amounts to 245 in the Premier League (49 per season) and 338 in all competitions (67.6 average per season) between that legendary front three when they were teammates at Anfield.
It isn’t just the goal output which made them such a brilliant forward line, either. Firmino’s indefatigable work off the ball as a ‘false 9’ helped hugely to facilitate the more prolific Salah and Mane to gobble up goals, with the three of them working brilliantly in tandem.
The Egyptian is the last man standing at Liverpool among that iconic trio, but thankfully in Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo (all 26 or younger), Jurgen Klopp has plenty of firepower in place to ensure that the Reds should remain frighteningly potent for many years to come.