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‘Mourinho smashed him massively… I was crying’: John Obi Mikel reveals how Mohamed Salah collapsed under former Chelsea boss José in a half-time reprimand, says NONE of his teammates foresaw his transformation to Liverpool glory
- Salah couldn’t win over Mourinho during a difficult two and a half years at Chelsea
- Since then, the Egyptian has become one of the best in the world in Liverpool.
- Mikel believes Salah’s difficult spell at Stamford Bridge made him the player he is
José Mourinho once left Mohamed Salah in tears at Chelsea after berating the Egyptian for a poor performance and taking him off at half time, claims John Obi Mikel.
Salah spent two and a half years with the Blues after completing an £11m move from Basel in January 2014, but most of that time was spent on loan after a difficult first half of the season under Mourinho.
Despite scoring twice in his first five league appearances, the now Liverpool star produced a series of sub-par performances and thus fell out of favour, meaning he was loaned out to Fiorentina and Roma for the last two years of his stay in West London.
And Mikel has revealed that Salah felt all of Mourinho’s wrath during a ‘bad game’ for Chelsea, which left him visibly emotional in the locker room.
The former Blues midfielder said in dubai eye: ‘Believe [Salah] he was having a bad game and then obviously Mourinho came in and tore him up, tore him up massively,” he said.
José Mourinho (L) once left Mohamed Salah (R) in tears at Chelsea, claims John Obi Mikel
Salah endured a difficult two-and-a-half-year spell with Chelsea early in his career.
Mikel recalled that the Egyptian was left crying after Mourinho attacked him at halftime
Asked if he ever expected Salah to go on and become a top player, Mikel said: ‘No. He was crying, and what happened is [Mourinho] did not let him return to the field of play in the second half. He took it off.
“It would have been easy to take him out and say ‘you’re not playing well, go away, sit down, you’re not coming back on the field.'” But she tore it open and took it away.
Since then, Salah has become one of the best players in world football at Liverpool, scoring 174 goals in 286 appearances for the Reds while winning the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup.
In his debut campaign at Anfield, he swept the Premier League, setting a top-flight record for most goals in a 38-game season with a staggering 32.
The 30-year-old isn’t the only world-class talent Chelsea have let slip through their fingers in recent years, with Manchester City maestro Kevin de Bruyne also sacked by Mourinho and company in the same month he Salah joined.
Mikel recalled: ‘Kevin was always a mischievous guy, he was always alone, he was always in a bad mood, he was always in a bad mood. You could never get anything out of him.
‘But now when I see him play… what a joy. What a joy to see.
Asked if both men’s disappointing experience at Chelsea made them, he continued: “I think so when I look at it.” You can also say with [Romelu] Lukaku too, he went to Inter Milan but he came back and it didn’t work out.
“But when I look at people like Kevin de Bruyne and Mo Salah, what they have become now, the best players in the world, it’s incredible to see. They have become physically stronger, they have become faster. I don’t know what happened to them!
Since then, Salah has become one of the best players in world football at Liverpool.
Mikel believes his trial period at Stamford Bridge with Mourinho made him the player he is