Mo Salah never seemed to get a fair run of it at Chelsea.
Having signed from Basel in the January 2014 transfer window, the Egyptian showed enough in his first four months to suggest he could push on during 2014/15 season. He played only eight times, however, and was loaned out to Fiorentina in the transfer window of 2015.
Fiorentina wanted to keep Salah around but the player himself was not as keen and ended up at Roma instead. He was a hit in the Italian capital and scored 34 games in 83 appearances before Liverpool swooped and brought him back to the Premier League in June 2017.
He has been a massive success at Anfield – scoring 57 times in 75 outings so far – and Mourinho has already been forced to defend his reasons for moving him on when he was Chelsea boss.
Last season, Mourinho suggested that he would have preferred if the attacker had remained at Stamford Bridge, but the club’s money men wanted him moved on if he was not a first team regular. This time out, ahead of United’s league clash with Liverpool, Mourinho has gone into Salah’s time at Chelsea a bit more.
“I think he developed incredibly well at every level,” Mourinho told Manchester Evening News. “Physically, amazing development. He was a fast, fragile boy and now he is a fast, strong man.”
Mourinho went deeper than that, and touched on Salah not being ready for the step-up in standards and opposition when he first arrived from Basel as a 22-year-old.
“He was psychologically not adapted,” Mourinho added, “coming direct from a small club in Switzerland to a big club in England, and in the Premier League it was too much.
“I remember I played him at White Hart Lane and at the Etihad and was too much for him. Now he plays everywhere, against any team. Can go to Barcelona, can go to Madrid, he plays like, ‘I am Mo Salah and I am afraid of no one and nobody’.
“He’s a fantastic player, completely different from the potential player we brought from Basel to Chelsea. Was a project of player and now he is one of the best players in the world. I know a project of player and now he is a top player.”
It would be fascinating to get Salah’s response to these comments, but he may opt to do his talking on the pitch.
Asked if United have a plan to corral the dashing Salah during the league clash, Mourinho said that he will have been analysed as a massive strength for Jurgen’s Klopp’s side but Liverpool have ‘many strengths’.
