Well they certainly started as they meant to go on.
It is August 12, 2017, and Jurgen Klopp picks Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah together in his Liverpool front three for the first time in a competitive match, an opening day trip to Watford which arrived to a backdrop of Philippe Coutinho complaining of a 'back injury' as he sought to force his way out of Merseyside and into the arms of Barcelona.
A day earlier, Coutinho had emailed the club a transfer request.
Liverpool were shocked, expressing their disappointment and upset to local journalists. On the eve of a season they suddenly had to deal with a new issue, and it was not one they were prepared for.
Who knows? Had the Brazilian not opted to make a perfectly understandable, and pretty common career move - at this moment Liverpool's only major trophy in the previous 11 years had been the 2012 League Cup, secured just over a year before Coutinho signed - then perhaps what would unfold over the next five years would have been very different?
If Coutinho was playing ball then maybe Klopp would - as we've seen with other new Liverpool signings - have been patient with Salah, his £36m summer buy from Roma, deciding to slowly bed him in and trusting Mane to play from the right as he had done the previous season?
Had his fellow Brazilian not been pushing to leave then Firmino, a Brendan Rodgers signing in 2015, could have found his position constantly changing as he looked for a home in Klopp's evolving system, certainly more of a home than left wing-back became one afternoon at Old Trafford in the bleak latter days of the Rodgers regime anyway.
And if he was happy then a fully focused and firing Coutinho could continue to be a key player who would alternate between midfield roles and the front three, scoring crucial goals such as his free-kick in the win over Middlesbrough on the final day of the previous season which had secured Champions League qualification. Forever decorating games if not too often dominating them.
Salah, who hadn't arrived with that much fanfare given that he'd had that disappointing spell at Chelsea, would then have to just cop for that. He'd still get more than his fare share of games, with Daniel Sturridge and the young Dominic Solanke in reserve, and Adam Lallana willing to play anywhere.
That'd be alright. That'd be just fine. And 'just fine' is exactly what Liverpool had been settling for for a long, long time. It's arguably what a lot of clubs settle for in the age of Manchester City's likely dominance.
But there was chaos to be sought and magic to be made, and as the deadliest triumvirate of attackers in the club's history came together, what was initially seen as experimental became revolutionary.
Mane, Firmino and Salah all scored in that game at Watford, and by the time a contrite Coutinho's 'back injury' had magically recovered a month later the new front three had scored 11 goals between them in seven games, even though they still weren't all starting together. Liverpool had scored 16 in total.
And that was it, pretty much. There was no turning back now.
For his part Klopp would go out of his way to not routinely refer to the three as a collective, wary that others would have to contribute at times.
But he would have been aware that Danny Ings was still suffering with the repercussions of the serious knee injury he'd sustained in the manager's first training session in 2015, Divock Origi had been sent out on loan, Sturridge was fragile and Solanke was a bit too young and raw, and so the evidence of what he'd got here was soon shown in his team selections.
After the 4-2 Champions League playoff win over a 30-year-old Julian Nagelsmann's Hoffenheim at Anfield which featured either a goal or an assist for each one of the front three - and one of the great team goals in Liverpool history finished off by Emre Can, in which Mane and Firmino had decisive roles - the Reds' website published the manager's thoughts on the attacking trio who were starting together for just the third time, with Sturridge having stood in for Salah at home to Crystal Palace the previous weekend.
Mane had made "a big step" according to Klopp, passing, dribbling and shooting in the right moments, while Firmino's work-rate and "the challenges he makes defensively" had blown his manager away, and the box-fresh Salah was "on the way there" according to his manager.
Things would never really change from that moment.
The roles were set - Mane would always, bar a couple of blips, make smart decisions, Firmino would always work and Salah would always improve - and Anfield was now the stage upon which this combination would evolve. It was time for the trio to run riot.
And even though more successful times and downright better teams would follow, that Liverpool of 2017-18 is still one that sets the heart racing.
The reintegrated Coutinho settled into a role behind the front three, the 'Fab Four' causing chaos at times as seven goals were put past Maribor and Spartak Moscow, five past Brighton and Swansea, four past Bournemouth and West Ham and three past Sevilla, Southampton, Stoke, Arsenal, Huddersfield and Maribor again. This was all before Christmas.
Coutinho was to leave shortly afterwards, but it was what Liverpool did next that ushered in the golden age of Mane-Firmino-Salah.
The Brazilian's sale directly contributed to the much-needed signing of Virgil van Dijk - a few of those aforementioned games, including the trio's debut at Watford, hadn't been won - and after shoring things up at the back the Reds scored 17 goals in six games en route to the Kyiv Champions League final of 2018, all bar two of them coming from the remarkable attacking trio who had all scored at least once in the 5-0 win at Porto and the 5-2 victory at home to Roma.
The team was still flawed obviously, Van Dijk couldn't solve that by himself, but when Alisson and Fabinho arrived that summer then the parts were in place. The Champions League trophy was won in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020.
Mane, Firmino and Salah all had their decisive roles within those triumphs, most notably during the run of 26 wins from the first 27 Premier League games of 2019-20 that is destined to forever be underplayed given what came after it.
"Thank God I have them and they make the difference," said Klopp after game two of that run, a 2-1 away win at Southampton.
"Sadio Mane, Bobby Firmino, Mo Salah – these guys in the last situation are really outstanding."
And even though there was still some time to go, "really outstanding" is probably the perfect description of the combination that would come to universally be known as 'the Liverpool front three', a classic rock band who played all the hits and then some.
Between them Mane, Firmino and Salah have scored 338 goals from the moment Salah joined on June 22, 2017, not always when they were on the pitch together obviously, but each benefitting from the reputation they had created when playing alongside the others.
Time would always catch up with them eventually, and the role of Diogo Jota and then latterly Luis Diaz in joining the firm cannot be praised enough, for they have made it easier for Darwin Nunez, but the old boys have still had their moments in the past couple of years, and they almost certainly could have had one or two more trophies in the cabinet.
Mane's departure for Bayern Munich officially ends the union though, with one or both of the other two members of the band likely to be gone next summer. The golden days of the three are over.
It was a remarkable ride while it lasted though, and Coutinho must still be wondering what might have happened without that email.
Klopp, and everyone else of a Liverpool persuasion, will just be glad he pressed send
