Liverpool New Boy Salah the Latest of Chelsea's Second-Chance Club to Flourish

In writing a letter of resignation from the exclusive Friars Club of Beverly Hills, the indomitable Groucho Marx crafted perhaps his most-oft repeated line: "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members."

By the very nature of the profession it would probably not work for footballers to be as fastidious as Marx when it comes to picking clubs, yet at the same time one can understand a reticence to join one of the second chance variety.

Mohamed Salah will have no choice. None of Chelsea's Second Chance alumni ever envisaged they would end up a member either. He's in good company. Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Juan Cuadrado, Thorgan Hazard, Filipe Luis, Nemanja Matic and Ryan Bertrand are all card-carrying members.

Each in its own way was more a failure of circumstance than any significant personal shortcoming, but there's no doubt they all departed west London with something to prove. Mostly to Jose Mourinho. Between them they made significantly less than a hundred Premier League appearances for Chelsea.

Salah joins Liverpool for a reported club record €39 million (£34.3 million) fee on the back of two-and-a-half magnificent seasons in Serie A. Long before Italy there was Basel, where the Egyptian blasted on to the European scene as though shot from a cannon to become one of Africa's most-sought after talents.

And then at the bottom of his CV, in a barely legible font size people usually only use to disclose a stint in prison, is a year at Chelsea.

Salah has already proved strong enough for it not to define him. Yet until he produces his Roma form in a Liverpool shirt, it will always be in the background. A nagging doubt, like an iron probably not left on. Every away ground in the country will remind him of Chelsea each time he takes to ground too easily, or overhits a cross, or undercooks a shot, or stokes Jurgen Klopp's ire, or is, heaven forbid, ever substituted. 

He can take consolation that a team of Chelsea rejects would probably challenge for the top four. It will always be the case at clubs rich enough to stockpile talent that the occasional bona fide star slips through the net. 

Chelsea, though, remind of the line in The Great Gatsby when narrator Nick Carraway can barely conceal his contempt when describing the monied Tom and Daisy Buchanan and their relationship with the filthy lucre: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Having to re-sign Lukaku for anywhere near the £100 million mooted, having sold him for £28 million, is the equivalent of having a great white shark on the end of your line and mistaking it for a boot. Only Harry Kane scored more Premier League goals last season than the 25 Lukaku plundered for Everton.

As with any fee negotiated by Europe's smartest and toughest transfer wizard, Monchi, the Salah deal looks to be weighted in favour of the selling club. Roma's piquant and razor-sharp director of football did not in his former role at Sevilla manage to sell £150 million worth of talent he had acquired for £23.5 million because he is afraid to bare his teeth at the negotiating table.

In the middle of negotiations with Liverpool he declared, per the club's website (h/t TalkSport): "Roma is not a supermarket." If it were, it would definitely be more Waitrose than Asda.

Still, talk of Salah's fee being grossly inflated feels a little like panicking about not being in the EU the day after voting to leave it. There is more chance of stopping the tide than exorbitant transfers. Indeed if Inter Milan can attract anything like the £40 million they purportedly want for Ivan Perisic, then Salah, at three years younger, may prove decent enough value. Let's not forget there were plenty last summer that thought the £34 million Liverpool paid for Sadio Mane was definitive proof the game has most definitely gone.

Salah has earned his move. A loan spell at Fiorentina in January 2015 drew so many admiring glances from Florence locals it is said Michelangelo's David threatened to step down from his plinth such was his nose out of joint.

The player was no less popular at Roma. Having been the club's Player of the Year in his first season, last term he scored 15 goals and assisted 11 others in 31 league appearances. No other Serie A player could match his creative output, quite the feat considering Salah spent a month at the Africa Cup of Nations as Egypt made it to the final.

He's a modern winger that plays inside, preferring the whites of the posts than the chalk of the touchline. The numbers back it up. Over his two campaigns in the Eternal City he registered 33 goals and 17 assists. Only the Pope has better conversion rates in Rome.

Italy has been good for Salah. For two-and-a-half years it has felt like home. If Chelsea and London effectively gave a callow 21-year-old kid the cold shoulder from the moment he arrived from Basel in the spring of 2014, Italy wrapped a comforting arm around him. 

Salah most probably looks back on those lost 12 months at Chelsea with the same mild embarrassment of a gap year student on realising they spent a full year deciding whether to have their hair braided or beaded in Goa and now have to spend the next 50 of them being an accountant. A football career is usually too short to be comforted by glib platitudes about all experiences being worthwhile one way or another. 

If he had his sliding doors moment of 2014 again he'd almost certainly leave Mourinho clutching a bunch of garage forecourt flowers on the Tube station platform, while he stepped into the warm embrace of then Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers. Salah can never complain of not feeling wanted on Merseyside given they have kept a candle burning for him all this time.

After signing for Chelsea from Basel for £11 million, in the remainder of what was left of the 2013/14 campaign he made just six starts. The eviscerating performances for Basel in European games against Tottenham Hotspur and his new paymasters that in effect earned him the move to England, quickly started to take on mirage-like properties. Was this kid really a proper player?

The following term his first full campaign at Chelsea was sliced in half like a magician's assistant, which some curmudgeons would say was apt given his brain never seemed to have a fully coherent relationship with his feet. After failing to make a solitary start in the league, as Chelsea cruised to the title, in January he was metaphorically sent to Coventry by physically being shipped to Florence. Which, to be fair, is the way round you would always want it. 

There's no shame in not being fancied by Mourinho. There was, after all, only a place in Chelsea's squad for him in January 2014 due to in the same window Juan Mata, the club's then Player of the Year, being allowed to join Manchester United. De Bruyne joined his fellow schemer in vacating his locker in the same period. He left to join Wolfsburg in an £18 million deal having previously enjoyed an impressive season-long loan at Werder Bremen. As crap decisions go, Chelsea letting him leave has got to be worthy of a circular blue plaque.

Mourinho gave just two Premier League starts to the Belgian. It would take De Bruyne just a season away from Chelsea in the Bundesliga to prove to everyone, including his former manager (although he'd never admit it), that he was gold sold at brass price.

Mourinho would later defend his decision on grounds the player was, "crying every day he wants to leave," per The Express' Uche Amako. The only tears shed two years later when Manchester City agreed to pay in the region of £55 million for the Bundesliga Player of the Year belonged to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

As Henrikh Mkhitaryan will attest, it's not unusual for Mourinho to spend a significant sum on a player without seemingly knowing exactly what he wants from them. At times it feels as if he is being deliberately obtuse, as though he goes home and tries to peel an apple with a spoon. In fairness, his record and honours list suggests otherwise.

Salah's loan switch to Fiorentina saw Cuadrado move in the opposite direction to Chelsea. Mourinho said at the time of the Colombian, having swapping one rapid winger for another, per The Telegraph: "He needs time [to adapt to the Premier League]. I know Italy and I know the difference between Italy and England; his formation, his development, his experience—everything was in Italy."

Cuadrado played 13 league games for Chelsea. Serie A has proved a safe haven for both of them. Maybe over this past couple of seasons, upon Cuadrado's return to Italy, him and Salah have been each other's sponsor. On call 24/7, for if either of them ever falls off the wagon and starts to think about west London again. Their WhatsApp group chat about Mourinho is probably so catty the only emoji that dares go there is a saucer of milk.

The link between the two players would become even more cemented if reports surfacing on Thursday suggesting Cuadrado to Arsenal have any genuine credence, per The Express' Liam Spence. A second chance for both of them in England, at two of Chelsea's main rivals, would be quite the thing. Having won Serie A in each of his two seasons at Juventus, it is unlikely Cuadrado rocks himself to sleep lamenting what might have been at Chelsea.

Filipe Luis is another odd one. The Brazilian left-back arrived at Chelsea from Atletico Madrid in 2014, won the title in his solitary season in England and then rejoined his former club without anyone noticing. I'm not even convinced he even told either party. Maybe he was just found one morning curled up at the end of Atletico's bed and no one had the heart to tell him he had to go back to London. As a mainstay of an Atletico side that routinely makes the last four of the UEFA Champions League, we'd probably call this one a score-draw.

The case of Matic is one of the first of what is threatening to become a trend of players returning to clubs where they were deemed surplus to requirements in the infancy of their careers. Think Michael Keane being linked with a return to Manchester United, as BBC Sport's Simon Stone reported. Or perhaps even Bertrand, whose form for Southampton and England over the past couple of seasons is rumoured to have impressed Chelsea's hierarchy, according to The Mirror's John Cross.

Famed for making his European debut in the club's Champions League final defeat of Bayern Munich in 2012, Bertrand had nine loan spells at seven different clubs before eventually leaving Chelsea on a permanent basis for Southampton two years ago.

Traditionally it has more often been the case a player would return to the club where it all began when on the decline, dropping down the leagues to do so. Now in an age when the role of the apprentice has been gentrified to be that of the Academy Graduate, it's starting to become de rigueur for the big boys to insist on a buyback clause when offloading young talent. It all feels a bit like childhood sweethearts getting back together having had a period of separation to find out what they really want from life.

Between 2009 and 2011, Matic made just two Premier League appearances in his first spell at Chelsea. After a loan stint at Vitesse Arnhem he was the makeweight in the deal that saw David Luiz move from Benfica to Stamford Bridge in January 2011. Three years later he returned to Chelsea for £21 million having impressed in Portugal.

Chelsea might discard players with the flippancy a toddler does a new toy, but in fairness they are big enough to make right any lapses in judgment. Though it looks as though Matic is bound for Manchester United to be reunited with Mourinho, per The Guardian's Jamie Jackson, there's little dispute he has proven excellent value in helping Chelsea to two titles in four seasons in the capital.

The return of Luiz was similarly integral to last season's surprise title success, despite initially being dismissed as a panic buy by pretty much everyone except the player, and Abramovich. Even Antonio Conte was thought to have had reservations. It could be history repeats itself, in terms of title-defining signings, if Lukaku is given another chance at Chelsea as a replacement for the dumped by text message Diego Costa.

Salah will be looking at how Lukaku has worked on his game to become a player Chelsea wish they had never let go. If he can hit the ground running at Liverpool there is every chance his former employers will be feeling exactly the same way about him.

He has definitely come back to England a significantly better player than the one that left. His coach over the past 18 months, Luciano Spalletti, has helped smooth out his rough edges. The fastest player in Italy no longer resembles Road Runner.

Now he thinks more, and that's important. He lets his head catch up to his feet. It's been ages since he's run off the edge of the cliff, let alone run out of pitch to maraud into. Crossing that was at one time erratic has been honed. Edin Dzeko would no doubt provide a glowing testimony, with Salah's seven assists for the Bosnian playing a key role in the former Manchester City man finishing last season as Italian football's most prolific goalscorer.

Devastating pace is best demonstrated via Salah's solo goal for Fiorentina against Juventus (shown below), when he puts on the afterburners to leave the best defence in the world looking its age. It's easier said than done. He's one of those rare beautiful movers that someone seems to move faster with the ball than without it. Liverpool supporters have been mocked for a perceived inordinate reaction to the signing, but they are right to be excited. A front four of Salah, Mane, Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino will take some stopping. 

Spalletti has got into Salah's head. He's made him buy into the team ethic, convinced him that it's possible to run in more than one direction. His work ethic is not dissimilar to Firmino's. It's this athleticism, and a willingness to do something with it both defensively and offensively, that will hold such appeal to Klopp. Whether he will start on the right with Mane switching to the left has been the topic of much debate; what is less disputable is that cases of twisted blood among Premier League full-backs will almost certainly be on the rise this season.

Salah would argue he doesn't need to join a second chance club having never really been given an opportunity in the first place.

Perhaps he's more philosophical with experience, and would argue another Groucho Marx quote better describes his mindset upon joining Liverpool: "I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."

After all, it's a mantra De Bruyne, Lukaku et al all swear by.