Rudi Garcia says Kevin Strootman will be like a new signing for Roma in the second half of the season, and warns Mattia Destro is not for sale.
The Dutch midfielder had been sidelined with a cruciate ligament injury, and has struggled to get back to his best since returning to the Giallorossi fold.
However, the French Coach assures that the international will soon be back to peak condition.
“The biggest signings in January?” Garcia considered in his Press conference ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Udinese.
Rudi Garcia says Kevin Strootman will be like a new signing for Roma in the second half of the season, and warns Mattia Destro is not for sale.
The Dutch midfielder had been sidelined with a cruciate ligament injury, and has struggled to get back to his best since returning to the Giallorossi fold.
However, the French Coach assures that the international will soon be back to peak condition.
“The biggest signings in January?” Garcia considered in his Press conference ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Udinese.
“[Manuel] Iturbe and Strootman.
“With Kevin obviously we knew that with such a bad injury it would take him time to get back to 100 per cent.
“He’ll basically only have half a season, although fortunately we played less games in the first half of the campaign.
“The more he trains, the more he’s improving. For Kevin the break was important, even in a mental sense to get back to training with an important freshness.
“Gradually we’ll see whether he’s back at 100 per cent, but he’s approaching it in training.
“As for Manuel, he took time to adapt at first, but I have total confidence in him.
“He always gives everything in training, which is a fundamental quality which you need to be successful and I’m sure he’ll do that with us.”
Garcia also discussed Mattia Destro, who has struggled for playing time this year when asked whether a lack of a 20-goal striker was holding the Lupi back.
“Although we haven’t scored many goals, we’ve created a lot of chances like we did at Genoa and we have the second best attack [in Serie A].
“I prefer to have 12 players who can score, as we did last year rather than one who scores 20-25 goals who you risk losing.
“I’ve already said, I’ve not asked for any changes to be made so we won’t be considering any tranfer offers.
“Destro is a target man, he’s no more or less important than anyone else. He’ll have his chance to show what he can do and to help the team.
“If, like last season, it’s in the second half of the campaign that’s fine by me.”