Chelsea winger Mohamed Salah has managed seven games this season in all competitions and 30 minutes in the Premier League only. It was evident his time at Chelsea is as good as over, and recent report suggests the Blues are looking to sell him abroad to Serie A giants Roma in the January transfer window.
Roma are in talks for Chelsea’s Salah. Loan with option to but being discussed (via @skysport)
— Serie A News (@TransfersCalcio) January 15, 2015
Reports coming from Sky Italia, via TMW, is that Salah’s agent is in talks with Roma over a possible switch to the Capital club. The vibe coming out from initial talks is that the deal could be done at the earliest with contracts being offered as well.
If the deal goes well then Roma will sign him on loan with a view to make the deal permanent in summer for around €15m, which is still €2m short of Chelsea’s valuation. German giants Hamburg have also shown an interest in him, but Roma seems likely his possible destination this month.
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho claimed last month that he doesn’t expect any major addition in the January transfer window, nor he expects any player to leave as well.
“We have a short squad but we’ve got good players, some younger, some older, but the squad is very, very good,” Mourinho said to talksport.
“Our project is to start and finish the season with the same group of players, so there will be nobody to leave and nobody to come in either.”
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The situation of Salah is slightly different. With Chelsea having enough firepower in the attacking department, Mourinho can afford to leave out the Egyptian winger from the squad, without hampering the team balance.
For a player of Salah’s quality, it is also important that he gets regular games at this stage of his career. Roma are one of the favourites for the Scudetto and boast a strong squad as well, but Salah can expect more game time for the Gialorrossi.
Premier League players going to Italy on loan is not uncommon these days. Only last week, we saw Inter Milan signing Lukas Podolski on loan from Arsenal, while AC Milan signed Chelsea duo Fernando Torres and Marco van Ginkel on loan back in summer – unfortunately both the transfers didn’t work out well for the Milanese.
Moving on to Van Ginkel, the Dutchman’s agent Gianluca Florini said Chelsea are annoyed with the way Milan have handled the player. The Blues want the youngster to get more games under his belt and are already considering sending him to other club on loan. Van Ginkel’s progress at Milan was halted by a serious right ankle injury that is likely to keep him out for two months at least.
What should Chelsea do now with Van Ginkel? The Dutchman is a highly talented midfielder, but with Chelsea having a strong midfield set-up already, it is really hard for him to make a break-through in the first team. He needs to play elsewhere to be in some kind of form to impress Mourinho, but with injuries becoming his regular ally at such an early age, it seems difficult now that he will go on and establish himself as a Chelsea regular in immediate future.
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