A former Chelsea coach has explained why Liverpool star Mohamed Salah moved on from Stamford Bridge.
The 29-year-old joined Chelsea from Basel in January 2014, but never managed to get consistent game time.
Two separate loan spells at Fiorentina and Roma eventually led to Salah joining the latter on a permanent basis in 2016.
The Egyptian left Chelsea with just 19 appearances and two goals to his name despite being on the club’s books for two-and-a-half years.
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Salah would spent just one season as a permanent member of the Roma squad before joining Liverpool in the summer of 2017.
Since then, he has gone on to score 134 goals in 212 appearances and is among the Reds’ all-time top goalscorers.
Eddie Newton, who was Chelsea’s loan technical coach during Salah’s temporary stints away from Stamford Bridge, has explained why it never worked out for the Egyptian in the capital.
Newton says that the personality of former manager Jose Mourinho was a crucial factor in shaping Salah's spell at Chelsea and being loaned out on two separate occasions.
"For me, I think Salah and De Bruyne wasn’t about talent,” Newton told Goal .
“It was a personality clash [with Jose Mourinho]. I just didn’t think it was working at the time.
"I think they were more than good enough, but it was the manager who didn’t see eye-to-eye with them, so it wasn’t going to work.
"For [Romelu] Lukaku, he wasn’t ready at the time, and I don’t care what anyone says.
"He just wasn’t ready to be the main No.9 up front and carry that platform like Didier [Drogba].
"He was always going to be compared to Didier and it wasn’t fair to him at that time.
"It was different situations for different players."
