Liverpool actually failed to sign Mo Salah in 2014

Updated: 23 Feb, 2025 • 0 • min read

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Liverpool actually failed to sign Mo Salah in 2014

Liverpool could've actually signed Mo Salah in 2014 - three years before finally getting the Egyptian, if it wasn't for Chelsea scuppering their plans.

Salah signed for Chelsea from Basel for a reported fee of £11 million in 2014, but limited gametime led to successive loans to Fiorentina and AS Roma, who later signed him permanently for £12 million in 2016.

Liverpool had actually tried to sign the 32-year-old before he went to Chelsea, but their Premier League rivals outbid them.

READ MORE: Mohamed Salah: Everybody will leave one day

Ian Graham was Liverpool's director of research during the mid-2010s, known for his data-driven approach to player recruitment.

And Graham's analysis showed that Salah's underlying statistics were very promising, even during his time at Chelsea and especially from his time at Basel.
Speaking to FourFourTwo, Graham highlighted why Salah became such a key transfer target.

We nearly signed him from Basel in January 2014. He was young and playing brilliantly in the Champions League and Europa League.

We didn't have data on Switzerland, but in the few thousand minutes he'd played in UEFA competitions, he was above the Premier League average and projected to be a superstar.

We thought we'd signed him, but Chelsea blew us away with their bid. José Mourinho was manager and I think they signed him so we couldn't have him, as much as because they really wanted him. He didn't really play.

When the opportunity arose again in 2017, many Premier League rivals were hesitant due to Salah's perceived failure at Chelsea.

However, Graham's statistical analysis showed that the two-time African Footballer of the Year had the potential to be a transformative player.

Although then-Reds boss Jürgen Klopp initially preferred Julian Brandt, he was eventually convinced by Graham to sign Salah, who went on to score 240 goals in 386 appearances for Liverpool in all competitions .

Usually there's a lot of competition for world-class players, but other Premier League clubs weren't interested - because he'd failed at Chelsea, we thought.

He'd played 500 minutes in the league - if you looked at his basic data he'd done fine, but the question was why he wasn't playing.

The answer for most clubs seemed to be that he wasn't good enough for the Premier League.

But you looked at their squad and Eden Hazard was playing ahead of him - you won't be playing if Hazard is there.

Chelsea had a great academy but young players barely got a chance under Mourinho, so you had Hazard and a manager who didn't like to play young players.

You can be a really good player and not get a chance, so we were comfortable that his time at Chelsea wasn't a problem.