Roma president reveals he bought Liverpool owner’s lunch after he thought they overpaid for Mohamed Salah

Roma’s James Palotta revealed the comical story involving Liverpool owner John W Henry ahead of the Champions League semi-final between the two sides

Roma president James Palotta has revealed that he bought Liverpool owner John W Henry lunch after he complained that the Premier League club had overspent on Mohamed Salah.

The Egyptian forward claimed the PFA Player of the Year award on Sunday to cap a brilliant return to English football, having scored 41 goals in all competitions for Liverpool ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg against his former side.

Salah left Roma last summer in a £34.3m deal to move to Anfield, with Palotta admitting that the decision was taken to cash in on him before his contract expired at the end of this season. While that deal in hindsight appears cheap, Palotta has revealed that his Liverpool counterpart Henry questioned whether the deal was a fair one, leading to their comical exchange.

“I told him that because he was sort of bitching a little about, ‘Did we overpay? I think we overpaid,’ and I said "I'll buy you lunch,” Palotta told ESPN.

"Well, when you look at it now, you can say it's an unbelievable bargain. The issue at the time was that when [director of football] Monchi came in, Salah wanted to leave, he had a year left on his contract so in another year you'd get nothing.

“He wanted to go back [to the Premier League] and prove himself, which he certainly has done. We can't tell you that anybody else was calling for Salah at anywhere near that kind of price, so there's a lot of teams that have missed out on the great play he's had this year.”

Salah’s form this season has helped all-but-secure Liverpool a place in the top four and Champions League football next season, providing they do not collapse over the remainder of the season, yet they are also just 180 minutes away from their first Champions League final in 11 years, with Roma standing in their way.

With Salah the top scorer in the Premier League this season and the joint second top-scorer – alongside teammate Roberto Firmino and Sevilla’s Wissam Ben Yedder – in the Champions League, Palotta has admitted to being taken by surprise at the 25-year-old’s phenomenal rate of scoring, although he believes that the secret lies in how Liverpool and Jürgen Klopp have worked out the best way to utilise his strengths.

“Honestly, yes [I’m surprised] and the reason is probably because look, we utilised him differently than Liverpool have. They figured out the best way to utilise him.

“At the time, we had him as a winger and you got [Edin] Dzeko in the middle and Dzeko's scoring 36 goals himself last year, so it's not like we didn't have someone in there tearing up the league last year.

“So with Dzeko there it changed a lot of how Salah would be used, and they figured out how to use him a little differently and he's much more in the middle it seems like.

“Where I'm surprised, is how great he's finishing. I mean I think he would say that in Rome, while he had a bunch of goals, his frustration was not finishing the same way and now you get the ball near his feet and it just seems like he's figured a way to put it in the net.

“Do they have bigger nets in the Premier League? It's just been amazing watching him and every time he scores I'm like, ‘Oh dear God!’