Mohamed Salah could still yet become a Liverpool player this week after Jose Mourinho confirmed Brendan Rodgers’ comments that nothing has been finalised yet.
Reports on Thursday suggested that Salah was on the brink of a move to Stamford Bridge after the Blues had a bid accepted by the Egyptian winger’s club, Basel.
Chelsea even went as far as issuing a statement on their official website declaring they had agreed to sign Salah, subject to a medical and international clearance.
However, in an interview with talkSPORT on Friday morning, Rodgers was quizzed about missing out on signing Salah, to which he hinted that the race to sign the 21-year-old was not over yet.
He told presenter Alan Brazil and former Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay, “To be fair, the club’s been working hard on a number of targets. Mohamed Salah’s a good player, we were tracking him for a while.
“Salah to Chelsea isn’t completed yet though, but if the deal can’t be done, it can’t be done.”
On Friday afternoon, at his press conference ahead of Chelsea‘s FA Cup Fourth Round tie at home to Stoke City on Sunday, Mourinho also revealed the deal wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
The Portuguese manager also admitted that the Blues had not inquired about Salah until it became apparent they were to sell Juan Mata to Manchester Utd — a deal that should be completed imminently.
“Maybe he’s [Rodgers] right, I don’t know what Liverpool bid before us. All I know is we went direct to Basel, they said yes, so we reached an agreement,’ Mourinho is quoted by Metro as saying.
“It was a surprise for us that Juan [Mata] was leaving, we were not prepared to make a bid or to try to bring a player to replace Juan in the squad, so everything happened very fast. We had to work on that and see which options could be good options for us and finally we decided to try for Salah.
“We started from zero because we had no contact with the club [Basel] or the player.
“The first step was an agreement with the club so that situation is done, everything is signed and done, subject to the medical which we haven’t had yet and subject to the player’s desire to join us or not.
“Now we know he’s very happy to come, but we have to finalise or not.
“He cannot come to England for his medical so we have to meet him, probably in Switzerland, so only after that can we bring him to the country.”
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