In the summer of 2017, Mo Salah was all set to leave Roma. Two clubs were sizing up a move.
Having revived his career in Italy with first Fiorentina and then Roma, Salah was subject to some interest from a host of clubs. When Roma demanded £40m for the Egyptian, several of those clubs opted to look elsewhere.
Salah had done well in Rome but he still had the stigma of being a perceived failure, under Jose Mourinho, at Chelsea. Only two clubs stayed in the hunt, but both wanted Roma to accept a more realistic offer.
The Serie A outfit did row back on their initial demands but, when it came time to stump up, Liverpool’s main rival for Salah’s signature backed off. That club was Paris Saint Germain at they were managed, at the time, by Arsenal boss Unai Emery.
PSG were in the market for Barcelona’s Neymar and, six weeks after Salah joined Liverpool (for £34m), the Brazilian headed to Paris. He was joined there by Kylian Mbappe, who was on loan from Monaco before a multi-million deal was concluded for the summer of 2018.
Salah went to Merseyside and has since become a hero of Liverpool supporters. In 78 games for the club, so far, he has scored 59 goals and made 23 assists. Ahead of this weekend’s clash between Liverpool and Arsenal, Emery spoke about the Salah deal that never was:
“The doubts were as to how he can take the performance into one big team. For example like PSG in Paris. But today I can say to you … if you are speaking about the five top players in the world, one is Salah.”
As for the Gunners’ opponents, Emery admits he is surprised that Liverpool are six points clear at the top of the table as he did not expect champions Manchester City to slip up twice in recent weeks.
“They created this team,” he said. “I remember three years ago they had a problem in their defensive moments and bought some people – for example Virgil van Dijk – with a good investment and the result is we are looking today at their progress. They are a very big team.”
