Chelsea Missed Out On Striker Who Was 'Like Messi,' Says Ex-Blues Defender

Chelsea once had the chance to have a player who was as intense as Lionel Messi.

Mohamed Salah has made quite a name at Liverpool. In his 186 appearances for the Reds, the 28-year-old has bagged a staggering total of 118 goals to his name, making him one of the most decorated players of his generation.

But looking back at Salah’s early years in the sport, things could have been completely different had Chelsea decided to stick with the Egyptian striker.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, former Chelsea defender Filipe Luis bared that the Blues didn’t realize what they failed to capitalize on when they sent Salah to Fiorentina in 2014.

According to Luis, it wasn’t intentional as the then-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho just didn't “get the best out of” him and Salah at the time.

But as far as work ethic goes, the Brazilian vouched for his former teammate, whom he even likened to Messi.

“It might look like we fell out, but I admire [Mourinho],” Luis admitted. “I won the league with him. But he didn’t get the best out of me, just as he didn’t with [Mo] Salah.”

“I suffered [with] Salah in training,” he recalled. “When he went Fiorentina, I said, ‘Why are you going, Momo? This is Chelsea.’ And he said, ‘I need to play.’ I thought, ‘This kid’s good.’ He never went for money or to win more; he went to show he could play. In training, he was like [Lionel] Messi. Really, like Messi. Ask anyone.”

Indeed, nobody may have known at the time that Salah would be one of the best to ever grace the pitch, not even Mourinho himself.

In an interview with beIN Sports in 2019, Mourinho addressed the issue and insisted that when he saw Salah at Chelsea, the “boy” was far from his present form.

"He arrived at Chelsea, coming from Basel, as a lonely boy, a naive boy, completely out of context and physically fragile,” Mourinho said of Salah.

"Then he goes to Italy,” he continued. “He has the experience at Fiorentina, he has the experience at Roma and when he comes back to England he comes completely adapted to the high level of European football. He has a higher understanding of the game, he is physically much stronger. You can see his body and his fitness is much stronger and much more confident."