Zaha would not shrink in a United shirt now...

FORTY million quid for a Chelsea reserve. The day Mohamed Salah signed for Liverpool the verdict was not universally positive.

Salah had done well in Serie A but his spell at Stamford Bridge had been unsuccessful. Just 19 games, just 10 starts. For Liverpool, it seemed an expensive gamble, a fee of £37m rising to £44m for a player who couldn’t make the team with a rival.

Reviewing reports from the time, Salah’s fee was described as ‘staggering’, his form at Chelsea ‘underwhelming’.

As for headlines, one would have been forgiven for thinking his first name was not Mohamed, but Chelsea Flop.

now look at him. Top goalscorer in the Premier League on 14 and credited with keeping Liverpool in firm Champions League contention, with so much uncertainty around the future of Philippe Coutinho.

Salah is one of the successes of the season. Kevin De Bruyne is, too, emerging as arguably the most influential midfield player in Europe, having travelled from Chelsea to Manchester City, via the Bundesliga.

So what price Wilfried Zaha? A lot of attention has gone on the players that have left Chelsea and returned with acclaim to major clubs, but could Zaha yet make Manchester United regret their parting, too?

Unlike Salah and De Bruyne on their return, he has proved himself in the Premier League. We already know he can handle English football.

Salah came back to England a changed man. ‘Everything has improved,’ he said. ‘Even my personality is different. I was a kid — 20, 21. now I’m four years older. Everything is different.’

And it is. Eden Hazard recalled Salah as an outstanding prospect. ‘In training, he would do everything,’ he said. And how often have we heard that of young players at the biggest clubs? That they impress away from the spotlight but struggle with the standards and responsibility demanded in matches, or that they thrive in training but are not trusted beyond and their confidence suffers?

Who knows why Salah and De Bruyne failed to make an impact at Chelsea, given their enormous ability? It is too easy to blame the manager, Jose Mourinho, who, after all, won the Premier League without them.

Equally, nobody would argue Zaha looked a Manchester United player on his form at Old Trafford. But now? United would surely love him — as would just about any club in the top six, even Manchester City.

Roy Hodgson deserves great credit for the direction in which he has steered Crystal Palace since succeeding Frank de Boer, but without doubt Zaha has been his greatest asset.

It is no surprise that he is now being linked with elite clubs again. Chelsea are said to be interested in a move in the January window.

LEAvIng aside the fact that Palace would be mad to sell — the bottom half is far too bunched for safety to be presumed in the next few weeks — it will still be a shock if Zaha sees out his career peak in south London.

If not January, then the summer may bring another offer he cannot refuse.

nor should he. There is every chance that Zaha, like Salah, like De Bruyne, has grown into the player English football thought had been recruited the first time, the one that developed away from the harsh scrutiny of the Premier League elite.

Roma are not a small club, but they do not live with the same pressure as Chelsea. Their last league title was 2001, their previous one 1983. They reached the European Cup final in 1984, but did not return to the competition for 17 years. In the last 14 campaigns, Chelsea have missed out on Champions League football once, Roma on six occasions.

So Roma, like Wolfsburg for De Bruyne, afforded the perfect opportunity to realise potential away from the high expectations at Chelsea, where the manager does not tend to survive the failure to win the league or a European trophy.

It will have been the same for Zaha at Palace, a club he knew and where he felt comfortable. He arrived at Old Trafford at a difficult time. He was bought by Sir Alex Ferguson, loaned back to Palace for the remainder of the season, and the club he then joined was managed by David Moyes.

Zaha was another considered to show potential in training by his United team-mates but he was raw and his finishing was not at the level we see now.

Equally, Moyes soon lost faith in Zaha’s ability to carry out instructions in a regimented United side, and his lack of maturity led him to make mistakes off the field — turning up for a flight at Manchester Airport in a T-shirt and jeans, when the instruction had specifically requested a suit be worn.

He lived in a different part of Cheshire to the other players and appeared overawed by them.

Midway through his first season he was loaned to Cardiff and in two years at United he played four games, getting marked down as another of those young players who shrank in the red shirt.

When he returned to Palace permanently, that was considered his level.

Clearly, it isn’t. Palace may make Zaha feel at home but they do not represent the limit of Zaha’s potential. He is 25, the same age as Salah, a year younger than De Bruyne and, like them, Zaha has evolved. Things change with maturity. One club’s flop becomes another club’s treasure.