Jose Mourinho: I told Chelsea to buy Mo Salah. They decided to sell him

Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has said that he told the club to buy Mohamed Salah from FC Basel in 2014 but that it was not his decision to sell the player to Roma.

Mourinho brought Salah to Stamford Bridge for a fee reported to be in the region of £11 million in January 2014 but the Egyptian only played 19 games in just over one season in South London before securing a loan move to Fiorentina the following season. Salah spent just one season in Florence before joining Roma on a season-long loan for €5 million before the club then signed the player on a permanent deal in August 2016 after he was named the Roma's Player of the Season in his first year in the Italian capital. Salah has since gone on to have a record breaking season with Liverpool after joining the Reds last summer but Mourinho said that he was not physically or mentally ready for the Premier League when he first joined Chelsea.

"People say that I was the one that sold Salah and it is the opposite," Mourinho told ESPN. "I was the one that bought Salah. I was the one that told Chelsea to buy Salah... But he came as a young kid, physically he was not ready, mentally he was not ready, socially and culturally he was lost and everything was tough for him. "Chelsea decided to sell him, OK? ... So the decision to send him on loan was a decision we made collectively, but after that, the decision to sell him and to use that money to buy another player wasn't mine... "

Mourinho has said that Salah has matured after some valuable life experiences and that he is now a player that is  perfectly suited for Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool having scored 43 goals in 47 games this season. “I think everything has surprised even him. It has been fantastic,” Mourinho added. “But he is a great player that has reached the peak of maturity, he has already lived several other experiences and now has fitted perfectly into the style of play of the team, of the coach and of the club as well.”