Mo Salah explains how Jose Mourinho's brutal Chelsea rejection changed his life

Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has lifted on the lid on how he turned his career around after being snubbed by Jose Mourinho at Chelsea.

The 29-year-old - now widely considered the best player on the planet this season - at one stage looked to be a Premier League flop rather than a world beater.

In January 2014 Chelsea paid £11million to Swiss champions Basel for Salah's signature, with the young Egyptian one of Europe's hottest properties.

But the winger made just 19 appearances for the Blues across two-and-a-half years, with Mourinho unwilling to give Salah the required game-time to develop.

"When I look back, [I had] bad advice with the situation," the Egypt captain told GQ.

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"It was so tough for me, mentally. I couldn't handle the pressure I had from the media, coming from outside. I was not playing that much. I felt, 'No, I need to go'."

Salah did just that and enjoyed loan spells in Italy with Fiorentina and Roma, joining the latter on a permanent deal in 2016.

Only a year later and he came back to England to prove his doubters wrong, with Liverpool forking out £36.9million.

"You have two choices: to tell the people that they are right to put you on a bench, or to prove them wrong," the ex- Serie A star went on. "I needed to prove them wrong.

"The best thing you could have is a serious conversation with yourself. Just get a coffee and just sit like this and just ask yourself what you want.

"Some people can't face themselves properly. But I have no problem with that. If I'm struggling, I just face myself and just feel where I am."

Despite Chelsea ending up as champions under Mourinho, former left-back Felipe Luis revealed that Salah played 'like Messi' in training and was initially confused when he found out the electric forward was leaving.

"When [Salah] went Fiorentina, I said: 'Why are you going, Momo? This is Chelsea'," Luis explained to the Guardian.

"And he said: 'I need to play'. I thought: 'This kid's good.'

"He never went for money or to win more; he went to show he could play. In training he was like Messi. Really, like Messi. Ask anyone."

Critics believe that Mourinho's rigid style was the reason why Salah struggled, three years before thriving under Jurgen Klopp at Anfield.

But 'the Special One' denies such claims, telling beIN Sports, via Goal : "For a start people try to identify me as the coach that sold Salah. I am the coach that bought Salah. It's completely the wrong idea

"I played against Basel in the Champions League. Salah was a kid at Basel. When I play against a certain team I analyse a team and players for quite a long time.

"And I fell in love with that kid. I bought the kid.

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"I pushed the club to buy him and at the time we already had fantastic attacking players— [Eden] Hazard, Willian, we had top talent there. But I told them to buy that kid. He was more a winger coming inside than a striker.

"He was just a lost kid in London. He was a lost kid in a new world.

"We wanted to work him, to become better and better and better. But he was more of the idea of wanting to play and not wait.

"So we decided to put him on loan, in a culture I knew well. Italy. Tactical football. Physical football. A good place to play.".