Liverpool’s Mo Salah may have scored a stunning 43 goals in his debut season in England, however the Chronicle have revealed just how close he once came to signing at St James’ Park – only for us to refuse paying the required £500,000 loan fee back in 2011!
Easy to say in hindsight, but it’s another absolute stinker to add to the infamous Mike Ashley era!
He’s the top scorer in the Premier League (and looks set to break the all-time record for top flight goals in a season), he’s just scored twice to put Liverpool on the brink of the Champions League final and he’s recently been awarded the PFA player of the year award, but things could have been so so different for the ‘Egyptian king’..
The following quotes came from the former Chelsea and Roma man back in 2011 (when he was just 18), with Salah admitting that we were about to make an official loan offer to secure his ‘dream’ move to the Premier League seven years ago now:
“Newcastle will soon make an official offer to sign me for one season. I don’t think contractors will refuse to let me play in the English Premier League.
“It’s a dream for any player to play in one of the strongest league competitions in the world.”
This was back when he played for Egyptian side El Mokawloon, and the Chronicle have suggested just how the deal then collapsed – with it being due to us refusing to pay a £500,000 loan fee for the season (according to reports in Egypt at the time).
Seven years on and he’s arguably the most in-form footballer in world football.
Another magical moment from Mike Ashley, but maybe we did him a favour. Pardew would’ve only played him at left-back!
Newcastle United missed out on signing Mo Salah in 2011 because we refused to pay a £500,000 initial loan fee. Another Ashley era corker.
— NUFCThreatLevel (@NUFCThreatLevel) April 24, 2018
Incase you think we’re making this up, read the original story here from 2011.
I think we can be fairly sure that even if he did sign in 2011 (after scoring 4 times in 20 appearances in the Egyptian Premiere League) if he’d been any good he’d have moved on fairly quickly.
While he may be banging them in at the moment I’d take a punt and say that he’s perfectly capable of slipping into “strop mode” when things don’t go his way and we’ll see him pulling sickies or going AWOL if he doesn’t get his move to Man City.
Rob Brown(Quote)