Jose Mourinho has washed his hands of Mohamed Salah’s controversial departure from Chelsea and claims that he deserves credit for bringing the Egyptian to Stamford Bridge in the first place.
Salah joined Chelsea from Swiss side FC Basel as a 21-year-old in January 2014 but made just 19 appearances – scoring two goals – in two-and-a-half years with the Blues. During that period he enjoyed hugely successful loan spells with Fiorentina and Roma.
He was then sold permanently to Roma for just €15m in the summer of 2016, where he shone for another season before returning to the Premier League with Liverpool for a club-record fee of £36.5m.
Salah has gone on to become one of the Premier League’s greatest-ever players and it is an ongoing source of frustration for many Chelsea fans that he slipped through their fingers – in a not dissimilar manner to another future legend, Kevin de Bruyne.
Mourinho often incurs a lot of their wrath, with his track record of bringing through and developing young talent being poor and the lack of first-team opportunities for Salah largely coming on his watch. He left the club in December 2015 but the Egyptian was already on a season-long loan with Roma by then and his future away from Stamford Bridge the following summer had all but been secured.
Yet in an exclusive interview with The Obi One podcast – hosted by ex-Chelsea star John Obi Mikel – Mourinho has insisted that Salah’s exit had nothing to do with him but that signing him for the Blues in the first place was solely his doing.
“When people say ‘you let Salah go’, I say exactly the opposite,” said Mourinho. “I bought Salah. I was the one that said ‘buy that guy’. He was going from Basel to Liverpool, and I made a fight. I made a war to make him come to Chelsea.
“Then comes the part to be a Chelsea player, you need to perform or have to wait. He didn’t want to wait and wanted to go on loan and then Chelsea at a certain point decided to sell. That was not me.”
Following his own departure from Chelsea, Mourinho has gone on to manage Manchester United. Tottenham and now Roma – where he has led them to Europa Conference League glory, the Europa League final and currently seventh place in Serie A.
