Jose Mourinho believes that Mohamed Salah’s failure to make the grade at Chelsea was down to him being ‘lonely’ and ‘naive’.  Salah joined Chelsea in an £11m deal from Swiss club FC Basel in January 2014 when he was just 21 and he struggled to make an impression in west London, scoring twice in 19 games in all competitions before being sold to Roma in 2016.  Despite his disappointing form in a Chelsea shirt, Liverpool opted to bring Salah back to English football in 2017, signing him from Roma in a £34m deal and he has since established himself as one of the best players in world football.  Salah’s exceptional form for Liverpool has led to criticism of Mourinho for deciding to sell him while he was in charge of Chelsea yet the Portuguese insisted during an interview with beIN SPORTS that Salah simply wasn’t ready physically or mentally to play in the Premier League at that time.  When asked why Salah didn’t succeed at Chelsea, Mourinho said: ‘Mentality, fitness and adaptation to a new reality. He arrived in Chelsea coming from Basel a lonely boy, a naive boy, completely out of context, physically fragile.  ‘Then he goes to Italy and has the experience of Fiorentina and the experience of Rome, when he comes back to England he comes completely adapted to the high level of European football with more understanding of the game, physically much stronger.  ‘You can see in his body and his fitness that he is much stronger, much more confident.’  After struggling to feature much for Chelsea during his first year with the club, Salah was loaned out to Fiorentina and Roma before joining the latter on a permanent basis following some promising performances in the Italian capital.  After scoring 29 goals and registering 17 assists across two seasons with Roma, Salah earned a move to Liverpool and his second spell in English football has been far more productive than his first.  Salah enjoyed a record-breaking first season with Liverpool by scoring 32 goals in 36 games to win the Premier League Golden Boot while his performances also led to a Player of the Year trophy too.  He has proven that that record was no fluke during the current campaign by scoring 17 times in 28 games as he bids to become the Premier League’s highest goalscorer for the second season running. Only Sergio Aguero with 18 has scored more goals this season.

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