Former Chelsea midfielder, John Obi Mikel claims Jose Mourinho once left Mo Salah in tears after a poor performance.
Obi went further to say, Kevin de Bruyne was always stroppy and always on his own.
Salah spent two-and-a-half years with the Blues after completing an £11million move from Basel in January 2014.
Although a majority of that time was spent out on loan after a difficult first half-season under Mourinho.
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Despite getting on the scoresheet twice in his first five league appearances, the now-Liverpool star produced a string of below-par displays and therefore fell out of favour.
He was sent out on loan to Fiorentina and Roma for the final two years of his stint in Chelsea.
And Mikel has revealed that Salah felt the full wrath of Mourinho during a “bad game” against Norwich in 2014. Salah was left visibly emotional in the dressing room afterwards.
The former Blues midfielder said on Dubai Eye: “I think Salah was having a bad game and then obviously Mourinho came in and ripped into him, massively ripped into him,” he said.
When asked if he ever expected Salah to go on and become a top player, Mikel said: “No. He was in tears, and what happened is Mourinho didn’t let him back onto the pitch in the second half. He took him off.
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“It would have been easy to just take him off and say “you’re not playing well, off you go, sit down, you’re not going back onto the pitch.” But he ripped into him and took him off.”
Kevin de Bruyne was always grumpy
Mo Salah is not the only world-class talent Chelsea have let slip through their fingers in recent years.
Kevin de Bruyne was also offloaded by Mourinho and Co in the same month Salah joined.
Mikel recalled: “Kevin was always a stroppy guy, he was always on his own, he was always moody, he was always grumpy. You could never get anything out of him.
“But now when I watch him play… what a joy. What a joy to watch.”
When asked if both men’s disappointing experience at Chelsea was the making of them, he continued. “I think so when I look at it. You can also say with Lukaku, he went to Inter Milan but he went back and it didn’t work out.
“But when I look at the likes of Kevin de Bruyne and Mo Salah, what they’ve become now, the best players in the world, it’s amazing to see. They’ve become physically stronger, they’ve become faster. I don’t know what happened to them!”
