{"id":288116,"date":"2023-09-18T21:34:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T21:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/?p=288116"},"modified":"2023-09-18T21:34:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T21:34:54","slug":"mohamed-salah-was-ready-to-leave-liverpool-claims-michail-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/soccer\/mohamed-salah-was-ready-to-leave-liverpool-claims-michail-antonio\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohamed Salah was &apos;ready to leave&apos; Liverpool claims Michail Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Mohamed Salah was &#8216;ready to leave&#8217; Liverpool this summer and join Al-Ittihad, claims Michail Antonio&#8230; as he insists the Egyptian was &#8216;locked up&#8217; by the Reds and told he would not be allowed to go<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Liverpool fought off strong interest from Al-Ittihad to keep Mohamed Salah<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Reds rejected an initial \u00a3150m offer from the Saudi champions this month<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s podcast It&#8217;s All Kicking Off!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Michail Antonio has claimed Mohamed Salah was keen to leave Liverpool this summer amid interest in the Eygptian star from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p><span>One of the biggest stories during the back end of the transfer window was<\/span>\u00a0Salah<span>&#8216;s future at Anfield after the Reds rejected an initial \u00a3150million bid from Saudi champions Al-Ittihad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reports suggested they were prepared to go back in with a \u00a3200m offer but Jurgen Klopp&#8217;s side managed to stave off their interest and keep their player, until at least January.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>During the brief saga, Klopp repeatedly stressed the speculation did not concern him, while Salah remained silent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And West Ham forward Antonio insisted the 31-year-old &#8211; who would have received an annual salary of \u00a3100m after tax for three years &#8211; was interested in the move, but the Reds outright refused to give him that opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/18\/20\/75569191-12532779-image-a-1_1695066639390.jpg\" height=\"357\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Michail Antonio claimed Mohamed Salah wanted to join Al-Ittihad from Liverpool this summer<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/18\/20\/75569193-12532779-image-a-2_1695066692533.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Antonio insisted Salah was &#8216;ready to go&#8217; but the Reds refused to countenance a departure\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span>&#8216;He didn\u2019t turn that down, no way,&#8217; Antonio told the Footballer&#8217;s Football Podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8216;<\/span>He was locked up and the Reds had put that red arrow across: &#8220;You are not going anywhere&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He did not stop that at all. To be fair to him, he didn\u2019t kick up a fuss and let them do what they were doing. But I know for a fact that he was ready to go.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite the extortionate sums of money on offer in the Middle East, Antonio also argued Salah had other motivations for his move after a stellar six years at Anfield.<\/p>\n<p>The Egyptian star has 188 goals for Liverpool and is fifth in their all-time goalscoring charts, while he has won every trophy available to him at the club.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8216;What else can he do at Liverpool? He\u2019s done it. It\u2019s [Saudi] a great opportunity for him, he is a Muslim man and it had everything screaming out for him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;There was no actual negative for the man to not go. I understand he has a contract, which he has fulfilled.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/18\/20\/75569199-12532779-image-a-3_1695066756579.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Al-Ittihad\u00a0 are managed by Nuno Espirito Santo and had an initial bid worth \u00a3150m rejected<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/18\/20\/75569203-12532779-image-a-4_1695066758532.jpg\" height=\"619\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Salah is one of Liverpool&#8217;s greatest players of all-time, having scored 188 goals for the club<\/p>\n<p>Salah hasn&#8217;t let the speculation distract him, with the 31-year-old scoring two goals and adding four assists in his first five games this season, as Liverpool remain unbeaten.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mail Sport reported earlier this month how\u00a0Al-Ittihad believe their pursuit to sign Salah is only on hold, and they plan to make another move in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The Reds are back in action on Thursday when they face Austrian side LASK in the Europa League, before they take on West Ham on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12532779\/Mohamed-Salah-ready-leave-Liverpool-summer-join-Al-Ittihad-claims-Michail-Antonio-insists-Egyptian-locked-Reds-told-not-allowed-go.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mohamed Salah was &#8216;ready to leave&#8217; Liverpool this summer and join Al-Ittihad, claims Michail Antonio&#8230; as he insists the Egyptian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mohamed Salah was &amp;apos;ready to leave&amp;apos; Liverpool claims Michail Antonio - Sports Love Me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/soccer\/mohamed-salah-was-ready-to-leave-liverpool-claims-michail-antonio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mohamed Salah was &amp;apos;ready to leave&amp;apos; 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