Jose Mourinho has cleared up things he says “are not true” about his relationship with Mohamed Salah.
Mourinho brought Salah to the Premier League in January 2014 when he signed him for Chelsea.
The Egyptian winger struggled at Stamford Bridge, scoring just two goals in 19 games in between loan spells with Fiorentina and Roma.
Salah left Chelsea permanently for Roma in summer 2016, joining Liverpool 12 months later and taking the Premier League by storm.
Mourinho has come in for criticism as a result, but has pointed out that while he loaned him out, he was not the manager who sold him.
“First of all let’s start with Salah,” he told beIN SPORTS. “Because lots of things have been told which are not true.
“For a start people try to identify me as the coach that sold Salah. I am the coach that bought Salah. It’s completely the wrong idea.
“I played against Basel in the Champions League. Salah was a kid at Basel. When I play against a certain team I analyse a team and players for quite a long time.
“And I fell in love with that kid. I bought the kid.
“I pushed the club to buy him and at the time we already had fantastic attacking players – Hazard, Willian, we had top talent there. But I told them to buy that kid. He was more a winger coming inside than a striker.
“He was just a lost kid in London. He was a lost kid in a new world.
“We wanted to work him, to become better and better and better. But he was more of the idea of wanting to play and not wait.
“So we decided to put him on loan, in a culture I knew well. Italy. Tactical football. Physical football. A good place to play.
“Fiorentina are a good team to play for without the pressure of playing for the title. And we decided that move there.
“When the club decided to sell him it was not me. I bought him, I did not sell him.”