Will Mohamed Salah be fit for Egypt’s World Cup Round of 32 clash with the Socceroos in Dallas?
I’m sad for Mo if he doesn’t make it, because I know him a little bit from our time at Chelsea and interviewed him recently upon his departure from Liverpool.
He’s a lovely guy but I’m happy for Australia if he’s not going to be fit, because he’s such a good player. Even if it wasn’t his best Premier League season, he’s still the King of Egypt! They rely heavily on him and he generally produces the goods for his country.
When I first met Mo, he was around 21 years old at Chelsea – he was almost like a rabbit in headlights. At the time, we’d both been signed by Jose Mourinho to play at Stamford Bridge at different stages of our careers.
He came to Chelsea and it clearly just wasn’t the right timing for him.
He says it himself: he wasn’t quite ready, he wasn’t able to deal with it all.
It was his first mega, mega transfer and also the biggest deal for an Egyptian player for a long time. He did really well in Basel, in Switzerland, but struggled with the pace and to find his place at Chelsea.
So he had to move on and find his other path.
He was very quiet, humble and hardly spoke.
You could see that he was feeling this enormous pressure.
Mark Schwarzer on the end of a Mohamed Salah shot at Chelsea training. Photo: Getty Images
Mohamed Salah (l) and Mark Schwarzer at Chelsea. Photo: Getty Images
That led to an enormous frustration from him because he felt he wasn’t delivering what he knew he could. The more he tried, the least likely he was going to produce at that particular time.
I have to confess: never in a million years did I think he’d hit the heights he did at Liverpool. I thought he’d be good. And he was good at Fiorentina. He also did well at Roma after, and I thought, I think he’s going to be good.
I don’t think anyone really thought he’d be THAT good.
He did, though. He did.
That sums him up.
He is very, very confident; his self-belief is extraordinary. He’s someone that demands massively of himself, I think he puts so much pressure on himself to deliver.
More often than not, he’s delivered, right?
His record is phenomenal at Liverpool and his Premier League record is insane. It is extraordinary how successful he’s been at Liverpool and how much of an influence he’s had on Liverpool, the Champions League, winning the Premier League title twice.
He’ll forever be a Liverpool legend.
Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool legacy. Photo: Liverpool FC / X
I caught up with him recently for an interview on Stan Sport in Australia and he was great to chat. He was very open.
Mo is that type of person that if he’s ready to talk, he will tell you everything and anything and more because more often than not it’s because when he’s ready to talk, he’s got something to say and he wants to put out a message.
I think he was very clear when I did the interview as well. He wanted to make it very, very clear things weren’t right at Liverpool, things weren’t anywhere near the expectation that he expected nor the players or the fans demanded and expected. He hinted there was more problems brewing than what we could all see; things people thought but you couldn’t really say. But he wanted to make a point.
He was a pleasure to interview. It was my first time I had a chance to interview him and I really enjoyed it.
We don’t know what his club future holds but now that he’s finished in the Premier League he is in the conversation for the all-time greats of the game.
Part of the issue for him is that last season, his numbers dropped off dramatically from the season before. He’s got the bar so high, he’s delivered time and time again, we take for granted how good that was in some ways. Then, when he doesn’t reach those numbers again, you go, oh, he’s done. He’s no longer at that level anymore and he’s been poor. And for him, that’s really hard to hear; he must be thinking ‘I’ve done this time and time again and I have one season where I don’t reach those numbers and all of a sudden I’m past it?’.
And that is the reality of sport. That’s the reality of being older, no longer reaching the levels that you were reaching consistently time after time after time and that’s what happens in this world and with social media and everything else – it is even more brutal than it has ever been.
But, where do I rank him?
I rate Mohamed Salah as one of the Premier League greats. Absolute Premier League greats. He is right up there with the very, very best.
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