Mo Salah WAS ready to quit Liverpool for Saudi Arabia during the transfer window.
That's according to West Ham striker Michail Antonio, who is adamant he knows "for a fact" Salah was up for a mega-money move to Al ittihad. The Saudi Pro League outfit lodged a mammoth £150million offer for the Egyptian star on deadline day, although that was rejected out of hand by the Anfield club, who would have had no time to source a replacement for their main man.
Ittihad are likely to try again in January and another nine figure offer may prove more tempting then. But Antonio says Salah wanted the move and there's no way he rejected Ittihad's advances, with only the club stance preventing him from heading to the Middle East. Antonio did praise the 31-year-old's professionalism for simply getting on with his job despite the Reds standing firm and insisting he was going nowhere.
He told the Footballer's Football Podcast: “He didn’t turn that down, no way. He was locked up and the Reds had put that red arrow across: ‘You are not going anywhere’. He did not stop that at all. To be fair to him, he didn’t kick up a fuss and let them do what they were doing. But I know for a fact that he was ready to go.”
Speaking at the time, Jurgen Klopp insisted there was never any doubt over Salah's commitment to Liverpool. And the boss insisted everyone behind the scenes was calm over the situation despite the media frenzy that surrounded it.
"I've never had, and I don't have now, doubts about his future, his commitment to this club," said the German. "Believe me, you can't imagine how much fuss the whole world makes and how calm we are with it. He's our player, he wants to play here and that's it."
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