Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has denied that he was the one who was behind Chelsea’s decision to sell Mohamed Salah.
The Egypt international Salah arrived at Chelsea in 2014 as a highly rated young prospect from Basel. He was unable to establish himself within the club’s first team as he went on to have loan spells with the likes of Fiorentina and Roma.
After being deemed surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge in 2016, Salah linked up with Italian club Roma. It was here that he went on to show signs that he could develop into a world-class player as he went on to score 15 goals from 31 appearances during his single season in the Serie A.
After seeing his potential, Liverpool signed Salah during the summer of 2017. Many actually felt that the former Chelsea flop was not a good signing for the Reds considering his inability to adapt to life at the West London giants.
Last season, however, saw Salah score 32 goals in the league from 36 games and in the process, he broke the record for the amount of goals scored in a single season.
Many Blues fans must now surely be regretting that their club decided to part ways with the Egypt international in the first place.
Mourinho told beIn Sports, as quoted by The Mirror: “Let me start with Salah because lots of things have been told that are not true. People try to identify me as the coach that sold Salah. I am the coach that bought Salah.
“It’s completely the wrong idea. I played against Basel in the Champions League. Salah was a kid in Basel. When I play against a certain team I analyse the team and players for a certain time and I fell in love with that kid.
“I bought the kid. I pushed the club to buy him and at that time we already had fantastic attacking players, like Hazard and Willian. We had top talent there. But I told to buy that kid, who was more of a winger than a striker coming inside like now. He was just a lost kid in London, a lost kid in a new world. And we want to work him to become better and better and better, but he was more in the idea that he wanted to play and not to wait.
“So we decided to put him on loan, on loan at a culture I knew well: Italy. Tactical football, physical football, good place to play in Fiorentina, good team without being a team with huge pressure playing for the title, and we decide that move there. ‘When the club decide to sell him, it was not me. I bought him, I did not sell him. My relationship with him was good, and is good. ‘I think that he doesn’t regret that move because everything went well for him, the progression went well for him. But at that moment it was just a kid with a huge desire to play every week, every minute, and we couldn’t give him that.”
