Liverpool’s front three all chipped in with the goals last night against Porto, with the Senegalese bagging a hat-trick.
Liverpool recorded an emphatic 5-0 victory away in Portugal last night as they embarrassed Sergio Conceicao’s FC Porto in the Champions League.
Jurgen Klopp can take extra pleasure from the fact that all three of his forward line got in on the scoring act, with Sadio Mane bagging a hat trick while both Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah found the back of the net.
Firmino and Salah have enjoyed terrific scoring seasons this term. Salah has obliterated his previous highest tally of 19, and currently sits as the second top scorer in Europe with 30 goals in all competitions, while Firmino is one goal away from equalling his record of 22, with plenty of games left to set a new one.
Mane, is slightly further behind on 12 goals, however, and still lacks the consistency of his forward colleagues.
On his day, Mane is arguably the best the club has to offer and is capable of producing scintillating performances to wow any crowd, however, his productivity is hot and cold.
Should the Senegal international find the consistency of the likes of Salah this season, Klopp may well have finished assembling a front three of world beaters who, going by the stats, are vitally important to Liverpool’s success.
In total, the Reds have bagged 97 goals this season, 63 of which have been scored by the three players mentioned above. This means that Mane, Salah and Firmino have scored 65 per cent of all Liverpool’s goals.
With Philippe Coutinho now at Barcelona, having bagged 12 goals himself this season, discounting the Brazilian’s efforts the Liverpool front three have in fact scored 74 per cent of the team’s efforts.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a club’s forwards to be dominating the scoring charts, however, the team is clearly heavily reliant on their front three to produce the goods when required, and Klopp will be hoping that the squad can begin to share the scoring duties somewhat to relieve pressure.
Nevertheless, with Mane seemingly hitting his stride ahead of the season run-in, all three forwards will have a huge part to play in Liverpool’s push for a top-four finish and run in the Champions League.
Klopp could not have asked for a better result last night, essentially ending the tie before the second leg has even kicked off, relieving much pressure for the return fixture.
If Liverpool can avoid another Coutinho situation and retain their front three, they may just have a shot at emulating Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling in 2013/2014.
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