Former Roma president James Pallotta blames Sevilla sports chief Monchi for the sales of Mohamed Salah and Alisson to Liverpool.

Monchi was in charge at Roma when the pair were with the club.

“He was so against getting help. After one month it was just so clear. He felt that he had to prove he was Monchi, that he was not going to listen to anything we came up with from our data," Pallotta told The Athletic.

“He wasn't going to listen to anything we came up with internally. Nothing. Zero. The other mistake I made is, like, I should have realised that he calls himself Monchi. It's like calling yourself Madonna. That should have been a warning sign for me," he added.

Monchi sold both Salah and Alisson to Liverpool in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

“Salah was a wonderful kid that I hated to lose," Pallotta said.

“I loved him. I didn't want to sell him. But I had no choice. Salah was going to go no matter what because he had something to prove."

At that time, Roma were still a year away from exiting their FFP settlement agreement and had to balance the books.

For the same reason, they sold Alisson to Liverpool for €62.5m. “Why would I want to sell a guy like that?" Pallotta asked.