“People try to identify me as the Coach that sold Salah. I am the Coach that discovered Salah”. – Jose Mourinho
Jose Mourinho, “I was the one that bought Salah, I was the one that told Chelsea to buy Salah. Chelsea decided to sell him”.
In 2014, Chelsea signed a 22yrs old Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah after a decent showing in the Champions League with FC Basel. Chelsea Under then Jose Mourinho paid £11m to acquire the services of the promising talent. Salah managed only 13 appearances for Chelsea in his debut season scoring two goals,he would spend the next two seasons on Loan in Italy with Fiorlentina and AS Roma. The loan spell with Roma was productive and they signed Salah on a permanent deal worth £15m.
Many Chelsea fans critized Jose Mourinho for not giving Salah the chance and playing time to develop into the Superstar he is now at Liverpool.
Mourinho on his defence in Mo Salah’s career :
“People try to identify me as the coach that sold Salah. I am the coach that bought Salah.
We played against Basel in the Champions League, Salah was a kid in Basel. When I play against a team, I analyse the team and the 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 that time we had already fantastic attacking players like Hazard and Willian, we had top talent there, but I told them to buy that kid.
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 into the idea of playing, and not waiting. So we decided to put him on loan, in a culture that I knew well, Italy.
Tactical football, physical football, good place to play. Fiorentina is a good team, without that huge pressure of playing for the title, so we decided he would move there.
When the club decided to sell him, it was not me. So I bought him, I didn’t sell him.
My relationship with him was good, is good. I think he doesn’t regret it because everything went well for him.
But at that moment, he was just a kid with a huge desire to play every week, every minute, and we couldn’t give him that.”
