Jose Mourinho hits back at critics as Manchester United manager says Chelsea sold Mohamed Salah, not him

Chelsea sold Salah in 2016 - after Mourinho had been sacked - and the United manager believes it is no surprise that he has developed into the Premier League’s leading player

Friday 27 April 2018 08:11 BST

Jose Mourinho claimed Chelsea made the decision to sell Mohamed Salah to Roma, not him (Getty)

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho is not surprised by Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah's exploits in the current campaign and defended himself by claiming the decision to sell the Egyptian from Chelsea to Roma in 2016 was made by the Premier League club.

Salah joined Chelsea under Mourinho in 2014 but failed to establish himself at Stamford Bridge and was loaned out to Fiorentina and Roma before a permanent move to the Stadio Olimpico outfit in 2016.

The 25-year-old returned to the Premier League with Liverpool this season and has excelled, scoring 31 goals in 33 top flight matches to win the Professional Footballers' Association's Player of the Year award.

The players Mourinho has fallen out with

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1/14The players Mourinho has fallen out with

The players Mourinho has fallen out with

The players Jose Mourinho has fallen out with

Mourinho's treatment of the young full-back Luke Shaw has made headlines, with the manager angrily accusing the 21-year-old of not applying himself in training, before hinting he could farm the player out on loan. But Shaw is far from the first player Mourinho has spectacularly fallen out with...

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Vitor Baia

The former Portugal goalkeeper started and ended a glittering career at Porto, having also spent two years at Barcelona. But Baia did not have it all his own way during his second spell, losing his first-team place and suspended for disciplinary reasons in Mourinho's maiden season as boss following a reported training ground row with his compatriot. Baia remained at the club until he retired in 2007, three years after Mourinho left for his first stint at Chelsea.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Ricardo Quaresma

Quaresma was meant to be Inter's star player under Mourinho, but the manager grew impatient with his ill-discipline and resorted to critiquing him in the press, which didn't go down well with the player. “My biggest regret was joining Inter," Quaresma later said. "I felt on the margins of the squad and woke up crying when I had to attend training sessions."

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

David Suazo

Mourinho failed to give David Suazo much of a chance when he took over at Inter in 2008 and criticised him in the press before farming him out on loan to Benfica. “Mourinho is arrogant and selfish, and likes to assert his dominance,” Suazo later told the Honduran publication, Diez.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Romelu Lukaku

"The thinking behind the move was the fact that Romelu was always very clear with us, in his mentality, in his approach, he was not highly motivated to come to a competitive situation at Chelsea," Mourinho said after allowing Lukaku to leave Chelsea for Everton in 2014, for £28m. The striker has recently been linked with a summer move to Mourinho's United, for £65m.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Kevin de Bruyne

The Belgian infamously revealed that he gave up on his Chelsea career after Mourinho had embarrassed him in front of his team-mates. “He called in all the attacking midfielders,” said De Bruyne of his final weeks in west London. “He showed us the stats of his six players - assists, goals, passing percentage, key passes, dribbles. He wanted to prove I didn't perform on the level of the others. I simply answered him: ‘Sorry, that's not logical. I've played less games than the others. How can you compare me to the others?’ That was just not fair in my eyes.”

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Juan Mata

Mata became a fans' favourite at Stamford Bridge after arriving at Chelsea from Valencia in 2011. However, the Spaniard struggled to adapt to Mourinho's style of play during his second spell in charge of the Blues and was sold to Manchester United in 2014. Mata and Mourinho were later reunited at Old Trafford and the former has now become an important player for his manager in Manchester.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Iker Casillas

The Madrid legend was one of the first players Mourinho fell out with after joining the club in 2010. Mourinho was disgusted that Casillas regularly spoke to Barcelona players and was said to be suspicious of his girlfriend, who worked as a journalist. “Mourinho saw him as a grass, a mole, a traitor and an egoist,” Diego Torres wrote in his biography, 'The Special One'.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Sergio Ramos

Current Real captain Ramos was a key player during Mourinho's three year stay in Madrid, although the pair were far from friends. Ramos went public with his dismay at Mourinho's treatment of Mesut Özil and insisted in a 2014 interview that he had forgotten who Mourinho was.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Pepe

The pair frequently bickered during Mourinho's time at Real, although like Ramos, Pepe remained a key part of Madrid's starting XI. Pepe accused Mourinho's treatment of his friend Casillas as being "not adequate". Mourinho replied: "It is easy to analyse the Pepe thing. His problem has a name, and it is Raphael Varane," suggesting that Pepe wasan inferior player to the emerging 20 year old.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Pedro Leon

Similar to Luke Shaw, Pedro Leon was a young player inherited by Mourinho whom he almost immediately dismissed. The Guardian's Sid Lowe reported that "Mourinho told Leon that even if the team plane crashed without him on it and he was the only man available, he still would not play the following week." Leon accused Mourinho of workplace bullying before being sold to Getafe.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

David Luiz

Mourinho sold Luiz upon his return to Chelsea and insisted that the defender "would not be missed". The pair have regularly traded jibes since and Luiz perhaps got the last laugh when Chelsea resigned him in 2016, under Antonio Conte.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Bastian Schweinsteiger

Frustrated with Schweinsteiger's habit of flying back to Germany when injured, Mourinho banished the veteran midfielder to training with the reserves. However, in a possible sign that he had mellowed, Mourinho later admitted to feeling regret over his handling of the player. "After knowing him as a person and a professional and the way he was respecting my decisions as a manager, yes I regret [it] and there is no problem for me to admit it, because I have told him," he said after selling the midfielder to the Chicago Fire.

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The players Mourinho has fallen out with

Luke Shaw

Mourinho's rant on Shaw's lack of effort in recent months was one of his most explosive yet. “It is difficult for him to be on the bench,” Mourinho said. “I cannot compare him with Ashley Young, with Matteo Darmian, with Daley Blind. I cannot compare the way he trains, the way he commits, the focus, the ambition. I cannot compare. He is a long way behind.”

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That has led to criticism of Mourinho, with Liverpool fans taunting the United boss about his ‘mistake’ to let Salah go. But the Portuguese has defended himself by stressing that he had already been sacked by Chelsea before the decision was taken to sell the Egyptian forward – though it was Mourinho who loaned him out initially.

"People say that I was the one that sold Salah and it is the opposite," Mourinho, who currently manages Manchester United, told ESPN.

"I was the one that bought Salah. I was the one that told Chelsea to buy Salah... 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.

"Chelsea decided to sell him, OK? 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."

Salah has scored 43 goals across all competitions this season and is in contention to win the European Golden Boot.

"I think everything has surprised even him. It has been fantastic," Mourinho added.

"But he is a great player that has reached the peak of maturity, he has already lived several other experiences and now has fitted perfectly into the style of play of the team, of the coach and of the club as well."

Liverpool are currently third in the league and in prime position to reach the Champions League final, after a 5-2 win in the first leg of their semi-final against Roma.

The side return to league action when they host Stoke City on Saturday while Mourinho's United host Arsenal a day later.

Reuters

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