Watching Mohamed Salah this season must be a painful experience for Chelsea fans.The Egyptian has scored 43 goals in all competitions and has fired Liverpool to the verge of the Champions League final.It’s left Chelsea fans wondering just why things didn’t work out for Salah at Stamford Bridge.Salah joined the Blues in 2014 but he failed to make an impact and, following loan spells with Fiorentina and Roma, was sold on a permanent deal to the Giallorossi in 2016.It was under Jose Mourinho where Salah struggled but Antonio Conte was the man who actually sold him.And this is a point that Mourinho was eager to stress during an interview with ESPN Brazil.The Portuguese coach has attempted to shift the blame for Salah’s departure as he explained just what led to his exit.
Mourinho on Salah
"It is the first time that I am going to say this, but it is another injustice that has been talked about me,” Mourinho said.
"People say that I was the one that sold Salah and it is the opposite. I bought Salah.
"It is the opposite. I was the one that bought Salah. I was the one that told Chelsea to buy Salah. It was with me in charge that Salah came to Chelsea.
“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.
"We decided to put him on loan and he asked for that as well. He wanted to play more minutes, to mature, he wanted to go and we sent him on loan to Fiorentina, and at Fiorentina he started to mature.
"Chelsea decided to sell him, OK?
“I agreed to send him on loan, I thought it was necessary, I thought that Chelsea had wingers... Some of them are still there like Willian, [Eden] Hazard and all those players already in a different level.
"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.
“But even if it was, in football we make mistakes a lot of times, so many times some players develop in way we were not expecting, some other don't reach another level like we thought they would, so I don't even think this is a mistake, it is just part of the job.
"But effectively I did buy Salah, I didn't sell Salah, but it doesn't matter."
It’s true that Mourinho wasn’t around when the decision was made to allow Salah to leave permanently but as football correspondent Melissa Reddy has reported, the 55-year-old admitted that Salah’s future lied away from Stamford Bridge.