Jose Mourinho has disagreed he masterminded Mohamed Salah's sale during his time at Chelsea
| ||||||
Chelsea bought Salah back in 2014 for a £11million fee when Jose Mourinho reunited with the London club.
Salah caught the eyes of the Portuguese after an impeccable display as they beat Chelsea home and away in the Champions League.
However, Salah couldn't shone at Chelsea and fell down the pecking order to the likes of Willian, Eden Hazard, Andre Schurrle and Oscar who were the Blues favorites then.
The Egyptian was later loaned to Fiorentina as part of the deal for Juan Cuadrado, he joined Roma on a permanent deal in 2015 before his return to the Premier League where he scored 44 goals on his debut season for Liverpool.
Salah's triumph at Liverpool stirred up criticism on Jose Mourinho who was accused of not giving the Egyptian more playing time at Chelsea.
But the former Manchester United boss has revealed he played no part in the sale of the current Liverpool ace forward.
"First of all let’s start with Salah. Because lots of things have been told which are not true," Mourinho told beiIN SPORTS.
"For a start 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 at Basel. When I play against a certain team I analyse a team and players for quite a long time. And I fell in love with that kid.
"I bought the kid. I pushed the club to buy him and at the time we already had fantastic attacking players - Hazard, Willian, we had top talent there. But I told them to buy that kid. He was more a winger coming inside than a striker. He was just a lost kid in London.
"He was a lost kid in a new world. We wanted to work him, to become better and better and better. But he was more of the idea of wanting to play and not wait.
"So we decided to put him on loan, in a culture I knew well. Italy. Tactical football. Physical football.
"A good place to play. Fiorentina are a good team to play for without the pressure of playing for the title.
"And we decided that move there. When the club decided to sell him it was not me. I bought him, I did not sell him.
No comments:
Post a Comment