Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has claimed that Jurgen Klopp wanted to sign another player before deciding to sign Mo Salah.
Salah left Roma in 2017 to join the Merseyside club in a £36.9 million deal. Questions were asked about his move to Liverpool because of his failure to perform at Chelsea in England’s top flight before.
The Egyptian has since become one of the greatest players ever to play in the Premier League. Salah became an instant hit under Jurgen Klopp and formed one of the most devastating attacks in the world with Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.
The former Roma star has played 332 games and scored 204 goals for the Reds but surprisingly, he was never a priority signing for Klopp.
The German manager wanted to sign his compatriot Julian Brandt who was playing for Bayer Leverkusen at that time. However, the board coerced Klopp into signing Salah since they had followed him when he was in Basel.
“When he initially came in, an interesting one was Mohamed Salah and Jurgen Klopp is open about this,” Carragher said on the Stick to Football podcast.
“He didn’t want to sign him, he wanted Julian Brandt. Liverpool had tried to sign Salah before he went to Chelsea and the people behind the scenes at Liverpool were still there and Salah then went to Roma, and they were very adamant that they had to sign this player. You look at what Mohamed Salah has done, but it could have easily gone the other way.
“I do feel that this idea that managers should buy every player isn’t right, but a manager shouldn’t have a player pushed on him.’ I don’t think a manager should just be able to do what he wants, you look at Manchester United and its worrying, it feels as if he’s [Erik ten Hag] just bought every player he knows.”