The proposed £16million fee that Fiorentina will pay Chelsea to sign Mohamed Salah on a permanent deal in the summer of 2016 is beginning to look like daylight robbery.
The 22-year-old condemned Juventus to their first home defeat in 48 matches with his sixth goal in seven games after being allowed to leave Stamford Bridge on loan in February.
Salah was used as a bargaining tool for Juan Cuadrado to go in the opposite direction for £23.3m, rising to £27m with bonuses, but has been the more devastating of the two for their new clubs.
Salah did not suit Jose Mourinho’s style of play and made just two starts in 2014-15.
He averaged nine minutes per game between August and January, and the arrival of Cuadrado saw him further kicked to the curb.
Mourinho and Salah agreed it was best he get first-team opportunities elsewhere, and Fiorentina’s faith has been rewarded
Against Juventus he sent a message to Chelsea by starting a run from his own half in a lethal counter-attack. He outpaced Simone Padoin before beating goalkeeper Marco Storari in the top left corner to make it 1-0 in the 11th minute.
Watch All Mohamed Salah Goals with Fiorentina:
Eden Hazard and Didier Drogba were on the same wavelength when they tweeted Salah is ‘on fire’ and the Egyptian, four years younger than Cuadrado, has plenty of time to improve.
On his arrival, Fiorentina manager Vincenzo Montella announced Salah would have to ‘adapt to our football’ and that ‘this is a league that’s different from the Swiss and the English’.
Louis van Gaal admitted it could take a year for Manchester United’s signings to develop, but no such time frame has been required for Salah.
Any suggestion he could not perform against Barclays Premier League teams was dismissed on March 1 when he punished Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League with a quick-witted one-two.
And three days later he scored the winner against Inter Milan at the San Siro to earn Fiorentina’s first win in that fixture since May 2000.
All this has helped Fiorentina stretch their unbeaten run to 13 games as the man behind Hazard, Willian, Oscar and Cuadrado in the pecking order gets put to good use elsewhere.
