Roma President Jim Pallotta admits Luciano Spalletti “saved my butt” and “we knew for a while he’d be going.” He also denied Mohamed Salah and Wojciech Szczesny exits.
The patron spoke to SiriusXM radio in New York about the end of this season, which saw them finish second in Serie A.
“Spalletti is a very complicated man, but he’s also a genius and very creative. I never criticised him, because he saved my butt last year and this one too. We knew for a while that he’d be going.
Roma President Jim Pallotta admits Luciano Spalletti “saved my butt” and “we knew for a while he’d be going.” He also denied Mohamed Salah and Wojciech Szczesny exits.
The patron spoke to SiriusXM radio in New York about the end of this season, which saw them finish second in Serie A.
“Spalletti is a very complicated man, but he’s also a genius and very creative. I never criticised him, because he saved my butt last year and this one too. We knew for a while that he’d be going.
“We are talking to a couple of Coaches. There have been a few complications, but we hope to give an announcement within the next week.”
Eusebio Di Francesco is first choice, but Sassuolo are refusing to release him without payment of the €3m clause in his contract.
Pallotta was also asked about the reports that Salah is on the verge of a €40m transfer to Liverpool.
“With these questions you seem like the Roman reporters… In any case, there’s nothing in it at the moment. We continue to receive offers for many of our players and if we were to listen to all of them, we’d lose three quarters of the squad. Now we’ll see what to do.
“In order to improve, we need four or five quality reinforcements, because we’ll be taking part in the Champions League too next year.
“This season we’ve been penalised by injuries, especially in defence. Alessandro Florenzi’s injury cost us at least four points. We also don’t have enough strength in depth for the attack. Edin Dzeko scored 39 goals, but if he had got injured, I don’t know how our season would’ve ended.”
Szczesny is still under contract with Arsenal after a two-year Roma loan, but has been linked with Napoli and Juventus.
“He told me that he wanted to stay with us,” Pallotta insisted. “I’ll say more, I was surprised by the fact some of the players I thought had wanted to leave came up to me before and after the final game to say they wanted to remain.
“It’s a sign we’ve got a good group, we just lack some depth and Monchi will help us with that. Our youth academy products have a lot of talent and they will no longer be loaned out all over the place. We’ll put them at the disposal of our squad.
“I saw Monchi and the other directors over the last five days to discuss many things. I met Monchi the first time nine months ago in London and we got along straight away.
“We’re fortunate he picked us, because he had more lucrative offers, but if he chose us then it means he believes in the project.”