Chelsea signed Mohamed Salah from Basel in 2013 for a fee of £11 million, but his stay at Stamford Bridge is one that the Egyptian Superstar will probably forget.
He made 19 appearances for Chelsea in all competitions, scoring 2 goals. He was loaned to Serie A side Fiorentina the following year.
Ex- Nigerian and Chelsea midfielder Mikel Obi has revealed that Jose Mourinho made Salah cry in the dressing room at halftime after the Portuguese international ripped into the Egyptian following a poor performance.
What did Mikel Obi say?
The former Premier League and Champions League winner with Chelsea said on Dubai Eye 103.8.: “For me, Carlo [Ancelotti] was the best man-manager I’ve ever had at Chelsea.
“The way he speaks to the players, so calm, you never saw him raise his voice towards the players. He passed his message across in a different way, of you’re not playing well, you’re a team. Other managers will scream and shout at you.
“Mourinho was a totally different animal, Mourinho we knew when we came into the dressing room before the second half, and you’re not going well he goes to the toilet… I was scared of him. Mourinho, I was definitely scared of him. The things he did to players… but it was just his way of getting his message across.
“I remember what he did to Mo Salah. The guy was crying in the dressing room in the second half, crying. I think he was having a bad game, and then obviously Mourinho came in and ripped into him, massively ripped into him.
Asked if he knew at the time that Salah would go on and become the player he is at Liverpool, Mikel Obi added: “No. He was in tears, and what happened is he [Mourinho] didn’t let him back onto the pitch in the second half. He took him off.
‘It would have been easy to just take him off and say, ‘you’re not playing well, off you go, sit down, you’re not going back onto the pitch.’ But he ripped into him and took him off.’
Another player who also left Chelsea during the Jose Mourinho era to seek more playing time is Kevin de Bruyne.
Mikel Obi also added that Kelvin De Bruyne, like Mohamed Salah, was always alone and moody.
He added: “Kevin was always a stroppy guy, he was always on his own, he was always moody, he was always grumpy. You could never get anything out of him.
“But now when I watch him play, what a joy. What a joy to watch.”
He continued on how their treatment at Chelsea by Jose Mourinho helped shape their( De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah) career: “I think so when I look at it.
“You can also say with [Romelu] Lukaku as well, he went to Inter Milan, but he went back, and it didn’t work out.
“But when I look at the likes of Kevin De Bruyne and Mo Salah, what they’ve become now, the best players in the world, it’s amazing to see.
“They’ve become physically stronger, they’ve become faster. I don’t know what happened to them.”
