Former Liverpool player Howard Gayle has revealed how he ‘put Mo Salah in’ for Liverpool but was told the Egyptian ‘wasn’t a priority’ a year before the Reds signed him.In 2017, Liverpool’s £34 million signature of Salah was met with excitement, but few expected him to become one of the greatest players to ever grace Anfield.Having played under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea for a year, Salah left the Londoners for Italy in 2015, initially on loan to Fiorentina before joining Roma.A startlingly quick right-winger, the Egyptian had been impressing in Serie A when former Liverpool striker Gayle was contacted by Salah’s agent.“His agent contacted me through another agent and said, ‘Here’s somebody that knows the ins and outs of Liverpool,'” the 1981 European Cup winner told This Is Anfield. • READ: How Liverpool’s first Black footballer overcame racism to aid European Cup triumph“He knew that I was linked in to Liverpool. I was doing a little bit of work for them then, but also I can ring up and get somebody to speak to me.“I think that his agent had looked at Mo and thought, ‘They’d be a great fit, an ideal fit.’ ”While his first spell in the Premier League hadn’t worked out, Salah was still keen to make it in England. Gayle continued: “I forget who it was that I rang up – I think it must have been the sporting director.“I said, ‘There’s a lad there, a player there and he’s a good player, and I think he could enhance us, be what we need.’“I forget who it was said, ‘Oh, well he’s not a priority.’“I said, ‘Well I think he is a priority because I think that last season we were struggling.'”Gayle can’t remember exactly who he spoke to, but he thinks it was most likely sporting director Michael Edwards.The now-revered CEO of football for FSG may have told Gayle the Reds weren’t interested, but this was almost certainly a play as Liverpool went on to sign him the next year.At the time, Liverpool were improving under Jurgen Klopp, but Sadio Mane‘s introduction alone wasn’t enough to fire the Reds’ attack into title contention.Borussia Dortmund’s Julian Brandt was the favoured forward target by Klopp, though Salah was also on the list of potential signings.Liverpool’s director of research at the time, Dr Ian Graham, has explained to BBC Sport how he turned the manager’s head. “Liverpool were the first club to have an in-house analytics department and our job was to collect data from 60 different leagues and report insights to the decision-makers,” Graham said.“Jurgen was really open-minded. If you could demonstrate why this player he hadn’t thought of before was a really good player, he would say, ‘OK, I can see what you’re saying. Maybe we should sign this player’, for example Mo Salah.“From our data analysis point of view, Mo was the best young wide-forward in Europe full stop. Roma were under pressure to sell but Jurgen’s preferred option was Julian Brandt.“The question marks were about his fit; we already had some great attacking midfielders in our team.“We agreed that Brandt was a very young player but not a standout in the same way Mo was. I was lucky enough not to be in the meeting where the transfer committee, Michael (Edwards) and Dave (Fallows) and Barry (Hunter), had to argue their case for Mo Salah against Jurgen’s case for Julian Brandt.“I think it’s to Jurgen’s credit that he engaged in that debate in a sort of honest way with his eyes open to say, ‘OK, I’m open to be convinced. Show me that Mo is better’.”Thankfully, Liverpool went on to sign Salah and Gayle’s instincts were proved correct.While it is unlikely he had any influence on the club’s decision to pursue their new No. 11, we thought it a story worth sharing!