Roma midfielder Kevin Strootman admits “my way of working and preparing in training has completely changed” after his knee problems.
The Dutch international missed the best part of two seasons with a series of knee injuries, but he’s returned to being a key part of the Giallorossi squad.
“After the injury my way of working and preparing in training has completely changed,” Strootman explained in a video on the club’s official Facebook page.
Roma midfielder Kevin Strootman admits “my way of working and preparing in training has completely changed” after his knee problems.
The Dutch international missed the best part of two seasons with a series of knee injuries, but he’s returned to being a key part of the Giallorossi squad.
“After the injury my way of working and preparing in training has completely changed,” Strootman explained in a video on the club’s official Facebook page.
“I had to change, maybe I want to be too precise but that’s how I like it. Sometimes they make fun of me, even the coaching staff, but that’s fine.
“I feel really good and I want to continue. When I had my knee problems I was told I couldn’t play 90 minutes, but since the injury I’ve played 80 games.
“I want to continue and constantly improve.”
Roma face Barcelona in the Champions League next week, and Strootman admits they’d rather not have faced the Blaugrana.
“It’s clear we didn’t want to face Barcelona, but you know if you get to the Quarter-Finals you’re going to have to play teams like that.
“It’s not certain that we’d have reached the Semi-Finals if we’d drawn Sevilla. We had to fight against Genoa last year [in the final Serie A game], we did it to play these games.
“We’ll do everything we can to get an important result over there, with a full stadium you never know what could happen.
“We’re happy to be here and we want to prove we didn’t get here by chance.”
The midfielder also discussed Turkish youngster Cengiz Under.
“He still struggles a bit with the language, before he only spoke Turkish,” Strootman explained.
“Now he understands a bit of Italian. He’s doing well on the pitch and that helps, if you’re not playing well it’s hard to integrate with the group.
“He has enormous qualities and he can become a very important player for Roma.
"He’s a good lad, but he still has to improve his Italian. He always says: ‘yes, yes, I understand’, then it turns out he didn’t understand a word!”