THAT’S MO LIKE IT
Super Salah on the rise again after Chelsea hell
IT has taken three-and-a-half years and a detour via London, Florence and Rome but £40m Mohamed Salah is finally off to Liverpool.
Salah was all set to move to Anfield in January 2014, before a phone call from Jose Mourinho changed his mind and persuaded him to join Chelsea instead.
At the time, it must have seemed a good call for the winger, teaming up with arguably the world’s leading club manager with a proven record of winning trophies.
Salah had every reason to believe that he would become a regular under Mourinho, having scored for Basel in each of two Champions League group-stage victories over Chelsea in the autumn of 2013.
Instead, the dream move turned into a nightmare. Salah was a flop at Stamford Bridge, making only six starts for Mourinho and scoring just twice.
In total, he played only 838 minutes for Chelsea – making his last appearance for the club as they were dumped out of the FA Cup at home by League One side Bradford in January 2015.
So in the space of two years, what has made Liverpool stump up a record amount to bring Salah back to England?
Promise
It appears his stint in Italy, first on loan with Fiorentina and then on a permanent basis with Roma, has transformed the Egyptian winger’s fortunes.
Salah began to show the promise that had prompted Chelsea to gazump Liverpool when he hit nine goals in 26 games during that first halfseason in Florence.
Fiorentina wanted to activate a clause in the deal to sign Salah permanently.
But the winger refused and instead headed to Roma, initially on a season’s loan before a £12m transfer was agreed last summer.
He has since begun to realise the potential that had always been there.
When he was making his name at Basel, he was always seen as a raw talent – a brilliant winger who did not always produce the goods when it mattered most.
At his best, he could look a world-beater, as Chelsea found out in those two Champions League matches. But he lacked the consistency.
That was a major reason behind his struggles in the Premier League under Mourinho.
The demands of the English game proved too much for a player who had not necessarily needed to produce his best every week in the Swiss league.
If he had flopped in Italy too, then his stock might not have recovered. But his tough times at Stamford Bridge seemed to galvanise him. He discovered the mental toughness to go with his skill and his value rocketed as a result.
Those six months at Fiorentina made all the difference. He hit six goals in his first seven games for the club, scoring against Tottenham in the Europa League and striking twice to put Juventus out of the Coppa Italia. Suddenly, all his confidence came flooding back.
The winger has always been capable of panicking defenders with his direct running, but he has added goals to his game. These days, he is not just a promising winger who can drift in and out of games – he is a world-class attacking talent with a genuine goal threat.
In his first season at Roma he scored 15 times, his best return in a campaign. Last season, he bettered it with a tally of 19 goals as his side finished runners-up to Juventus.
Roma looked at one stage as if they might even wrestle the title away from Juventus, although their challenge faded away after a bright start.
But Salah also impressed at the Africa Cup of Nations in January, scoring two fine goals at the tournament in Gabon as Egypt finished runnersup to Cameroon.
The Salah who Liverpool are signing in 2017 is a much more rounded talent than the one they missed out on in 2014 – and that is reflected in the huge mark-up in price.
Three-and-a-half years ago, Brendan Rodgers tried and failed to get a player who was worth £11m. Today, his value is almost four times that.
At only 25, his best years are still ahead of him.
For that reason, Liverpool believe he is worth every penny.