Jose Mourinho has defended his management of Mohamed Salah during the forward’s time at Chelsea.
The Portuguese went as far as to say the decision to sell the Egypt international was made by the hierarchy at Stamford Bridge – not by the Portuguese.
Salah joined Chelsea as a fresh-faced winger from Basel in January 2014 for £11million, but was restricted to just 19 appearances.
Despite impressing in the Champions League for the Swiss side, Salah went on loan to Fiorentina and then Roma and never returned to SW6.
In June 2017, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp decided to part with £34million to bring the Egyptian back to the Premier League and the investment has paid off.
Salah has scored 46 Premier League goals for the Reds and led them to the Champions League Final last season.
“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,” Mourinho told beIN SPORTS.
“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.”
Despite the 26-year-old’s incredible resurgence, Mourinho does not believe he failed to get the best out of the player while he was managing him.
He added: “Lots of things have been told that are not true. People try to identify me with the coach that sold Salah; I am the coach that bought Salah. It’s completely the wrong idea.
“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.”
With World Cup winner Andre Schurrle and Diego Costa also in the Blues’ front line, Mourinho admitted he was forced to agree to send Salah out on loan.
But the ‘Egyptian King’ was not the star who terrorises defences up and down the country as we see today, rather a ‘lost kid’.
“He was just a lost kid in London,” Mourinho continued. “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.”