Roma Coach Luciano Spalletti doesn’t want credit for reviving Edin Dzeko – “he was always a player who can make a difference”.
The Bosnian striker was heavily criticised last season, scoring just 10 goals across all competitions in his first season in Italy.
However, this season the Giallorossi man has already scored 12, winning the affection of the fans.
“I didn’t revive anyone,” Spalletti insisted in an interview with UEFA’s official website.
Roma Coach Luciano Spalletti doesn’t want credit for reviving Edin Dzeko – “he was always a player who can make a difference”.
The Bosnian striker was heavily criticised last season, scoring just 10 goals across all competitions in his first season in Italy.
However, this season the Giallorossi man has already scored 12, winning the affection of the fans.
“I didn’t revive anyone,” Spalletti insisted in an interview with UEFA’s official website.
“He was always a player who can make a difference. I think the difference is that Edin feels more at home.
“The Roma fans have recently begun to appreciate him because he made the first move. Edin’s first move was to tell me ‘Boss, I want to stay at Roma, I want to show my value’.
“That was the answer I wanted to hear, I’d have expected that because there wasn’t a big market, we couldn’t replace him with a player of his quality.
“The first priority was to recover this player.
“I didn’t help him last year, because there was one time where I subbed him off for [Francesco] Totti when he wasn’t doing well.
“He came off to whistles from the stadium, while Francesco came on with all the stadium cheering. That was a major mistake on my part, I later realised.
“This year I haven’t done that, I’ve told myself that’s it’s something I don’t have to do even if it will bring the result.
“We’ve lightened the speech around it, in the sense that it’s no longer a conflict – Totti plays or Dzeko does.
“That’s because during pre-season this year I often had them playing together and Totti gave great assists to Dzeko. Then when I put them together against Sampdoria we turned the game around.”
Spalletti was also asked for his assessment of the Lupi’s Europa League campaign.
“We didn’t do well for a couple of games, especially the home draw with Austria Vienna when we had the result in our hands.
“We put everything into question, because then it came down to the return match which we later won. That gave us the chance to be in a privileged position, because now it’s in our hands.
“Having the next match at home to Viktoria Plzen we’re in a position to finish first. We did well in the return leg with Austria Vienna.
“It looks like a hard competition from outside? From inside it’s even worse!
“You can make your assessments from the outside – Roma are strong, Manchester United are strong, Inter are very strong – then there are also opponents.
“You go to play on pitches where you find teams who raise their level even above their quality, they want to go up against you.
“The only way to combat that is with football that counts and a squad where everyone wants to highlight why we’re strong.”