Football tactician Jose Mourinho has revealed the culprit in the departure of Egyptian attacker Mohammed Salah from Chelsea to Roma. The Portuguese tactician has been accused of allowing high profile performers at Chelsea to depart the club during his managerial reign with Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne, Manchester United’s Juan Mata and Liverpool’s Mohammed Salah.
However, the former Manchester United manager has come out to reveal who actually sold the Egyptian prodigy.
In an interview with Bein Sports, Mourinho said: “When the club decided to sell him, it was not me. I bought him, I didn’t sell him, and my relationship with him was good, is good”.
“I think that he doesn’t regret that move because everything went well. Everything went well for him and the progression 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 it.”
Mohammed Salah has been instrumental to Liverpool’s form in the current Premier League season with 2017/2018 top scorer providing crucial goals and assists that have kept the club in the prime position to win the league.
Mourinho further revealed that contrary to the notion that he hated the player, he fell in love with the attacker even before he arrived Chelsea.
“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 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 the time, we already had fantastic attacking players – [Eden] Hazard, Willian – we had top talent there. But I told [Chelsea] to buy that kid.
“He was more a winger coming inside more than a striker like he is now.”
The Portuguese tactician further disclosed that Salah was a lost kid in London as he lacked playtime at Chelsea as of then.
“He was just a lost kid in London. He was a lost kid in a new world and we wanted 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. 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 being a team with huge pressure playing for the title and we decided that move there.”