• Uefa financial fair play forced us to do the deal, Monchi adds • ‘Had we not we probably would not be here in the semi-final’

Roma’s sporting director, Monchi, has defended the sale of Mohamed Salah to Liverpool and insisted the Italian club had no option because of financial fair play pressures.

Salah was described as “the best player on the planet right now” by Steven Gerrard on Tuesday having led Liverpool’s 5-2 rout of the Italian club in the Champions League semi-final first leg. The Egypt forward’s stunning display, scoring his 42nd and 43rd goals of the season, has intensified criticism of Roma for sanctioning his move last summer for an initial £36.9m.

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Monchi, who oversaw the transfer shortly after his arrival from Sevilla, insists the need to comply with Uefa’s financial rules gave the club no alternative. “I sold him for more than €42m,” the sporting director told the Spanish radio station Onda Cero. “We had a need to sell. We had no option but to sell Salah before 30 June. Had we not done that, we probably wouldn’t be here playing the semi-final of the Champions League as we had Uefa closely monitoring us.

“We didn’t want to sell him but we had no choice. We had to take an offer before the end of the month. He wanted to leave, but we would have kept him if the regulations weren’t against us. When I arrived, the offer [from Liverpool] was €30m but we managed to get it up to almost €50m with bonuses. That is what we could do. The market then went crazy with Neymar, Coutinho and Dembélé.”

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Salah was named PFA player of the year on Sunday, is being touted for the Ballon d’Or and needs four goals to equal Ian Rush’s 34-year record for the most goals in a season by a Liverpool player.

Monchi said: “He’s had an extraordinary season. Of course people have questioned why we sold him. We congratulate Liverpool for buying him. We had to sell him and the player wanted to leave. Unfortunately, we suffered that on Tuesday night because we know of his quality. He is a very strong player.”

Roma’s captain, Daniele De Rossi, said his team suffered “a total blackout” as they were torn apart at Anfield and that Liverpool resorted to long balls to bypass midfield.

De Rossi claimed: “Not having seen the game back, it would be wrong for me to give a tactical view of what happened. Liverpool are strong, let’s not forget, and they did very well, but we had 20-25 very good minutes at the start.

“They constantly went for the long ball, from any area of the pitch, and it’s difficult to cover that space when there are players who are always faster than you. We got the feeling they were going over the midfield completely, so we couldn’t intercept the ball.”