Roma Had To Sell Mohammed Salah – Monchi

Roma’s transfer market guru feels like he owes fans an explanation as to why he sold Mohamed Salah for what now seems like a bargain price.

Salah has already nearly doubled his output of 15 goals for Roma in Serie A last season — which was a career-high for the speedy Egypt international. Overall he has 36 goals in 40 matches in all competitions since joining Liverpool.

“On Salah there are two important things to understand,” Monchi said at Rome’s Foreign Press Association on Wednesday. “First, Salah was sold before the Neymar effect revolutionized the market. Second, we had a necessity to sell Salah before June 30.”

“Anyone who understands a bit of this business knows that that’s like having a sword pointed at your neck,” Monchi said. “So taking into account these two conditions, I think we made a sale that was fairly big.”
Salah’s current value is an estimated €162.8m, according to the CIES Football Observatory.

“True, he then became an incredible player and with the Neymar effect and Mbappe, Dembele, Coutinho, he surely demands a higher price now,” Monchi said. “But these two things are important to understand. Otherwise it seems that Monchi is a bit blind.”

At the time of the transfer, Monchi had a hard time believing that Salah would prosper in the English Premier League.

“It’s strange, because he returned to a league where he didn’t perform well in before when he was at Chelsea,” Monchi said. “But he found a coach that believed in him and great teammates. It’s a squad that suits his style of football more.”