Nigeria international forward Taiwo Awoniyi has revealed the role Egyptian striker Mohammed Salah played in his decision to leave Liverpool permanently three years ago, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Awoniyi spent six years on the books of Liverpool without making a single first team appearance. The Reds would sell Awoniyi to Union Berlin in a £6.5m deal in July 2021, following a succession of loans in Germany, Holland and Belgium.
He spent only one year with Union Berlin and scored 20 goals in 43 appearances for the German outfit, he would complete a £17m move to Nottingham Forest, where he presently has 13 premier league goals from 43 games including a spell where he scored in seven consecutive games.
Last season he scored the winner for Forest against Liverpool, but he missed yesterday’s 0-3 loss to his former side, no thanks to the same groin injury that has kept him out of action for the past three weeks.
“It’s been a long journey!” he said. “Last season playing at Anfield was a dream come true,” he said. “Of course I probably dreamed of playing there for Liverpool before I left, so playing there against them, it was a mixed feeling, I would say.”
Although he didn’t make an appearance for the first team, he referenced training with the team during their pre season tour as the reason behind his decision to leave, which he said wasn’t an easy one to make but he had to leave because of the players ahead of him particularly Salah, who is still at the club unlike the duo of Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
“The training sessions, wow! I knew that this is the kind of training that you win something from!” Awoniyi told Livepoolfc.com. “You don’t train like that and then at the end of the season you get nothing.
“For me as a player, that was the kind of environment I had always wanted. But in life sometimes you have to make tough decisions, and I knew for me that I needed to go and play every week.
“You look at the time, there was Salah, Mane, Firmino and others. I knew the chances (to play) were very, very slim. I knew I needed to get to a place where I was playing every week. It was hard (to leave), but it was a decision I had to make.”
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman