Salah and Sadio: Liverpool's new 'SAS' strike force armed and ready to take out Barcelona

The historic moment arrived after 65 minutes on Friday. Jordan Henderson’s swirling cross was headed in by Sadio Mane. It was his 20th Premier League goal of the season. Mohamed Salah had already got there , making them the first duo from one club to reach the landmark for five years. Their predecessors? Another Liverpool duo, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, in 2013/14. A reunion at Camp Nou on Wednesday also offers a comparison: not with Lionel Messi, because such assessments are automatically unfair, but between Liverpool’s past and present. Suarez and Phillipe Coutinho brought the drive and class to Liverpool’s last title challenge. Five years on, one of their accomplices, Raheem Sterling, has been crowned Football Writers' Player of the Year , but his Manchester City may pip Liverpool to the league. Another, Sturridge, is a back-up, lacking Roberto Firmino’s affinity for the pressing game. Sturridge may leave on a free transfer in the summer, but he was elevated to another level by Suarez. So were Liverpool. "We were on the verge of the Premier League with a squad nowhere near as good [as now]," the Uruguayan told The Guardian last week. The difference is personified by Virgil van Dijk, between England’s most frugal defence and one that conceded more goals than 11th-place Crystal Palace. Yet, in looking at the respective forward lines, there are both structural and personnel differences. Salah and Mane can be described as wingers; certainly they arrived at Anfield as such, even if neither hugs the touchline and each exploits the channel between centre-back and full-back and each doubles up as a poacher. Suarez and Sturridge are strikers who sometimes had to adopt a wider role. Their supporting acts, Coutinho, Sterling and Henderson, adopted a variety of different positions in ever-changing shapes. Now Jurgen Klopp has an idiosyncratic, established formation, a narrow 4-3-3 that, apart from an autumn flirtation with 4-2-3-1, is enshrined and rigorously enforced. As Pep Guardiola has noted, no other team attacks with such a concentration of players in central positions. _______________________ _______________________ And yet the man in the middle of that front three, Firmino, is the least prolific of Liverpool’s forwards. In a sense, he is Suarez’s successor, and they share a work ethic, but the Brazilian’s impact is not always reflected on the scoresheet. While Salah displays a selfish streak when he has a sight of goal, otherwise, Liverpool are defined by teamwork. Yet five years ago, as Steven Gerrard pointed out in his autobiography: “SAS was not a partnership in the mould of John Toshack and Kevin Keegan. Suarez and Sturridge worked instead as two gifted individuals.” Now it is about the system. Then, as Brendan Rodgers said: “They are both soloists.” They were competing with each other; for the central striking role, with the other sometimes consigned to the graveyard shift on a flank, and to score more. Suarez won the latter contest comprehensively. “There was a sustained period where playing with Luis was like being under a magical spell,” Gerrard recalled. “He blew me away with his talent.” He blew opponents away, but in a different respect. Suarez was the last player to record 30 Premier League goals in a season until Salah last year. That, perhaps, was when similarities were most apparent, when each offered an irresistible blend of pace and potency, flair and finishing. That was when their front three contributed a combined 91 goals. It was when Liverpool were at their most explosive and exhilarating; certainly since 2013/14, if not before. Then came a more pragmatic reboot, designed to render Liverpool more consistent. If the foundations of Rodgers’ side were built on sand, Klopp has an altogether sturdier basis to his side. It will be required to combat Suarez, let alone Messi. And yet, from the unpromising beginnings of players who were not such specialist goalscorers elsewhere, he has found a new SAS: not Suarez and Sturridge, but Salah and Sadio.

Salah and Sadio: Liverpool's new 'SAS' strike force armed and ready to take out Barcelona

Each has recorded 20 league goals this season as Liverpool get ready to connect with players from their past at Camp Nou on Wednesday