Liverpool Wanted Three Other Forwards Before Mohamed Salah

Sadio Mane's departure from Liverpool brings about the end of the iconic forward trio at Liverpool that included the Senegal star, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, but it might never have come together in the first place.

In 2017, Liverpool signed Salah from Roma in a deal that could easily go down as one of the best in Premier League history, considering the feats of the Egyptian since moving back to England.

His arrival allowed Jurgen Klopp to team him up with Mane and Firmino and in their time together the trio have scored 245 league goals.

They won the Champions League and Premier League together and are a huge part of the reason for the Reds being one of the best teams in the world.

Mane's move to Bayern Munich, confirmed on Wednesday, brings an end to their era but it wouldn't have actually happened if one of three prefered targets had moved to Anfield before the club turned to Salah.

The trio is down to two. Image: Alamy

"Liverpool scouted about 15 wide players between missing out on Salah [when he was at Basel] and signing him," Times journalist Paul Joyce wrote back in 2017.

"Liverpool scouted about 15 wide players between missing out on Salah and signing him.

"Klopp has conceded that it was Dave Fallows, head of scouting and recruitment, Barry Hunter, the chief scout, and Michael Edwards, the sporting director, whose background checks extended to spying missions at training camps as well as matches, who constantly pushed his case.

"[He joined] only after Liverpool had looked at other targets. Borussia Dortmund refused to let Christian Pulisic leave, Julian Draxler was pursued last January [2017], opting to move instead to Paris Saint-Germain from Wolfsburg, and Julian Brandt chose to stay at Bayer Leverkusen fearing that he would not play regularly at Anfield.”

Salah and Mane may never have won the Champions League together. Image: Alamy

Pulisic had arrived at Dortmund just as Klopp was leaving the Bundesliga side and was heavily linked with moving to Anfield at the time of Salah's move.

The American forward stayed in Germany then but just 18 months later he'd agreed a deal to move to Chelsea, staying at Dortmund until summer 2019 on loan.

Draxler's move to PSG came in January 2017 and things haven't really gone all too well for the German since that move, and he's not been first choice for most of his spell in the French capital.

At just 21-years-old at the time, Brandt was understandably worried about first team football and the winger certainly got plenty of minutes at Bayer Leverkusen.

He has since moved to Dortmund, and continued to improve, although he's obviously got nowhere close to Salah's goal scoring feats, but few have.

None of the 'prefered' forwards have done as well as Salah in the past five years. Image: Alamy

Mane's move to Bayern has been met with an emotional farewell from both the player and his now former manager, Klopp, after six years at the club.

Klopp said that the 30-year-old was a 'modern day icon' at Anfield and it wouldn't be too far to also claim that he's become a legend for the red half of Merseyside.

They'd have been a much more different team without him and even more different if Salah had never joined him.