{"id":498171,"date":"2025-10-14T07:06:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/498171\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:06:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:06:27","slug":"liverpool-legend-asked-lfc-to-sign-mo-salah-but-was-told-not-a-priority-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/498171\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool legend asked LFC to sign Mo Salah but was told “not a priority!” – Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Liverpool player Howard Gayle has revealed how he \u2018put Mo Salah<\/a> in\u2019 for Liverpool but was told the Egyptian \u2018wasn\u2019t a priority\u2019 a year before the Reds signed him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2017, Liverpool\u2019s \u00a334 million signature of Salah was met with excitement, but few expected him to become one of the greatest players to ever grace Anfield.<\/p>\n

Having played under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea<\/a> for a year, Salah left the Londoners for Italy in 2015, initially on loan to Fiorentina before joining Roma. <\/p>\n

A startlingly quick right-winger, the Egyptian had been impressing in Serie A when former Liverpool striker Gayle was contacted by Salah\u2019s agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis agent contacted me through another agent and said, \u2018Here\u2019s somebody that knows the ins and outs of Liverpool,’\u201d the 1981 European Cup winner told This Is Anfield.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2022 READ:<\/strong> How Liverpool\u2019s first Black footballer overcame racism to aid European Cup triumph<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew that I was linked in to Liverpool. I was doing a little bit of work for them then, but also I can ring up and get somebody to speak to me. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that his agent had looked at Mo and thought, \u2018They\u2019d be a great fit, an ideal fit.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

While his first spell in the Premier League<\/a> hadn\u2019t worked out, Salah was still keen to make it in England. Gayle continued: \u201cI forget who it was that I rang up \u2013 I think it must have been the sporting director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018There\u2019s a lad there, a player there and he\u2019s a good player, and I think he could enhance us, be what we need.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI forget who it was said, \u2018Oh, well he\u2019s not a priority.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Well I think he is a priority because I think that last season we were struggling.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ST.<\/p>\n

Gayle can\u2019t remember exactly who he spoke to, but he thinks it was most likely sporting director Michael Edwards<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The now-revered CEO of football for FSG may have told Gayle the Reds weren\u2019t interested, but this was almost certainly a play as Liverpool went on to sign him the next year. <\/p>\n

At the time, Liverpool were improving under Jurgen Klopp<\/a>, but Sadio Mane<\/a>\u2018s introduction alone wasn\u2019t enough to fire the Reds\u2019 attack into title contention.<\/p>\n

Borussia Dortmund\u2019s Julian Brandt was the favoured forward target by Klopp, though Salah was also on the list of potential signings.<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s director of research at the time, Dr Ian Graham, has explained to BBC Sport<\/a> how he turned the manager\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLiverpool were the first club to have an in-house analytics department and our job was to collect data from 60 different leagues and report insights to the decision-makers,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJurgen was really open-minded. If you could demonstrate why this player he hadn\u2019t thought of before was a really good player, he would say, \u2018OK, I can see what you\u2019re saying. Maybe we should sign this player\u2019, for example Mo Salah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our data analysis point of view, Mo was the best young wide-forward in Europe full stop. Roma were under pressure to sell but Jurgen\u2019s preferred option was Julian Brandt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question marks were about his fit; we already had some great attacking midfielders in our team.<\/p>\n

\"LIVERPOOL,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agreed that Brandt was a very young player but not a standout in the same way Mo was. I was lucky enough not to be in the meeting where the transfer committee, Michael (Edwards) and Dave (Fallows) and Barry (Hunter), had to argue their case for Mo Salah<\/a> against Jurgen\u2019s case for Julian Brandt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s to Jurgen\u2019s credit that he engaged in that debate in a sort of honest way with his eyes open to say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m open to be convinced. Show me that Mo is better\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Liverpool went on to sign Salah and Gayle\u2019s instincts were proved correct. <\/p>\n

While it is unlikely he had any influence on the club\u2019s decision to pursue their new No. 11, we thought it a story worth sharing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Liverpool player Howard Gayle has revealed how he \u2018put Mo Salah in\u2019 for Liverpool but was told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,163716,179,1128,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-498171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-howard-gayle","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-mohamed-salah","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115371257682503357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}