Gasperini: “I didn’t do anything against anyone, anyone at all.”

“I’d like to highlight two things. The first is that the club have never lacked belief in me. From day one, from our very first meeting, I’ve always felt Roma’s support and trust. This is essential in order for us to work as best as we can. The second thing that seems very important to me in the statement is that Roma comes first. These are the two fundamentals. ”**Is there anything Ranieri has said in recent days that affected you the most, maybe hurt you the most, or upset you the most?** “Not upset me. I’ve never had any such feelings about what has been a very difficult and very intense situation. There had never been anything of the sort, neither in other meetings nor personally. The only thing is it really surprised me.” **You’ve said in the past that within Trigoria people need to develop and improve. Do you expect a qualitative leap in this regard?** “From what point of view? I didn’t do anything. The situation happened the way it happened, but it’s nothing to do with me. Don’t draw me into this – I didn’t do anything against anyone, anyone at all.” **I was asking a different question, though. A few months ago you said that improvement was needed within Trigoria. What are you expecting?** “I said ‘within Trigoria’ because Trigoria is the place where the football is played, where the action should be taking place, where I hope the focus of footballing matters is. I’m just trying to do my job in football. As for all of the other issues, I’m on the outside and I don’t deal with them, I don’t talk about them. My only goal is to work with football here, that’s it. Everything else seems to me to be on a different level. “I’m referring to having a stadium which is always full of fans, to the city that follows us, but also to all of you who follow the club with passion. But I’d like you too to finally get back to talking about football. I don’t talk about anything else – I don’t know how else to say it, and I don’t want to get involved in these discussions. I’ve been dragged into it but I just want to stick to football. I hope that you and everyone else gets back to talking about the game, about teams, about results, about players, about what can be done to satisfy the passionate fanbase that the club has.” **Paulo Dybala will likely be available again tomorrow. Can you confirm whether this is the case? Is there a chance that he’ll start the game?** “It seems unlikely that he’ll be in the starting eleven. Paulo started working again this week after more than 80 days out of action, nearly 90 days, in fact. So, no, I’m ruling out him starting the game. When a player comes back after many months out it’s hard for them to slot into the starting team. Let’s hope – I certainly hope – that he can come on over the course of the match. However, we’re playing away and it’s more a question of being in the swing of things and confidence – his confidence in his ability to perform. It’s not a question of fitness, but rather of kicking the ball, shooting and tackling. That’s to be expected when a player has been out of action for a long spell.” **Will the next five games between now and the end of the season have an impact on Dybala’s future?** “They’ll certainly have an impact on the end of Roma’s season. Having him available again is clearly an added value. He and Malen have only played together once. We’re all happy and curious to see them playing together, perhaps alongside another player, but maybe not. That’s the most important thing. It’s difficult to talk about the future at the moment. We have five games left and that’s quite a lot. Sometimes people talk as if we’re already at the end of the season but five matches are a decent number – it’s 15 points to be won. Right now I’m trying to keep the players’ focus on tomorrow’s game and on our coming games. We can’t afford to mess up. We must play all five games with total commitment and the desire to earn as many points as possible.” **How did you go from the press conference a few months ago, when you were all smiles with Claudio Ranieri, to not even mentioning him, to him being kicked out of the club?** “Everyone has seen what has happened. That’s all there is to it. It’s not something I feel like commenting on. I was not involved. I’m not going to be a part of this mudslinging circus which goes on every day. I’ll keep working on the team and trying to do well tomorrow.” **Do you think a coach in Italy can be a ‘manager’ in the English sense? And is that something you would like to do?** “I think more than ever you have to work as a team. If we ask the team to harness the skills of the players, to adapt to different positions, to play together and achieve results together for the good of the team, then more than ever, when it comes to transfer dealings, the coach has to do his job but he also has to complement the sporting director. I think today, more than in the past, there are situations that you have to deal with together, with the right qualities. I think the sporting director and the coach should be jointly responsible for the results and for the construction of a team, both in the good and the bad. They need to work in tandem. Sometimes, especially in the past, it happened that sporting directors spoke to the coach, then they went and called another coach and told him to be ready. There was an incredible misunderstanding. Or the coach was the one who had to coach the team and the sporting director the manager who did his job. “I think it’s very different nowadays. Club owners need to be involved too because we’re talking about big numbers and the decisions are very important. It’s essential to be able to work as a team. You have to understand the needs of the market and the difficulties that sporting directors come up against in the transfer market, and sporting directors have to understand the needs of coaches to build teams and bring in what they ask for, with the aim of improving the team.” **Do you and Frederic Massara complement each other? Do you work in tandem, give that there’s talk of him possibly leaving too?** “I don’t know about that. I can tell you that Ricky is a wonderful person. I can tell you that on a technical level we’ve never really bonded – but only in terms of the team. There’s never been anything personal. It’s only ever been about playing in a slightly different way. Professional requests, nothing personal. As for his future, that’s up to the club. It’s not up to me.” **Would you have liked to talk more about football this season?** “Yes, I’d have liked to talk about football a lot more. I’d happily talk about football all day long. With you guys too. It’s always nice when we talk about football. It comes with the job, I guess, but it’s also much more pleasant, don’t you think? There’s much less resentment. I believe it’s fundamental to exchange ideas constantly. It helps you understand others better and get to know them better. I’m not interested in other things. I only need to talk about football and exchange ideas to try and improve the team.” **You’ve said that getting into the Champions League is not a target that the owners set but that you and the team set for yourselves. Is there a minimum target the club has set for you – the Europa League perhaps – considering also what’s happening in the Coppa Italia?** “No, there’s not, but we’re still thinking about it. We’re still looking above us. When it’s no longer possible to aim that high, we’ll settle for other things.” **Have you started talking to the owners about next season? And do you feel it’s time for Roma to put together a run of results?** “It would be good if we could. If we keep winning, we’re probably still in time. But obviously with every week that passes, the margin for error diminishes. You can’t make any more mistakes.

“As for the other question, no, because we’re still busy with this season and we must remain busy until the 24th of May. We’ll think about the future when the club deems it right.” **Do you think your lack of understanding with the sporting director has held back the development of the team in this first year?** “I always respect people’s work. It’s not that I wasn’t happy with the sporting director’s work. I’ve always left a lot of freedom. I’ve always said: ‘Have you seen him? I don’t know every player. If you’ve seen him and you like him, get him.’ I’ve never rejected anyone. I’ve always looked for the qualities I seek, but that’s something you’ve known since July-August. From the day I arrived, I said, ‘Let’s strengthen in attack because this is a strong team. I don’t think it’s an exceptional request. I think it’s quite normal for a new coach who’s just come in, perhaps with a different way of playing, to make that sort of request. I’ve never blocked anything. When people talk about agreeing, yes, because I said, ‘If you’ve seen him and you like him, get him.’ I’ve never prevented anyone from doing their job. What I did insist on was attack because I felt this team was in a good place if we could strengthen up front. And it’s not that we didn’t do that, but that was my main request. Is that so difficult to understand, so difficult that it could create this whole situation?” **About a month ago you spoke about big defensive errors. Do you think that’s something that has improved now or did you see similar mistakes in the game against Atalanta?** “The team has done superbly over the season. We had a spell when opponents found it really hard to score against us and we had one of the best defences. We went through a different spell too but that can happen over the course of a season. Overall, looking at the 33 league matches we’ve played, I think our defensive performances have been excellent.” **What happened with Jadon Sancho?** “It couldn’t be done because understandably the owners didn’t want to do it. It’s understandable. That’s it.” **The last two matches against Bologna unfortunately had a negative impact on Roma’s season. Have you focused on the difficulties encountered in those two matches while preparing for tomorrow’s game? Is there anything from those matches you need to address, perhaps in terms of Roma’s mistakes?** “The team did a lot of good things. There were mistakes too of course, but lots of good things. The two matches were very good overall, and I think we probably did more. We lost in extra time having played very well in both legs, and come from behind. We found ourselves having to come from behind in the second leg, from 1-0 down and then after they went 3-1 up. I think we performed well in both games. Then they scored in extra time and that’s understandable because both games were evenly matched. Bologna are an excellent, well-drilled team with lots of options on the bench who played in the Champions League last season. They did well in that game too. But I think Roma produced two strong performances, as we did against Atalanta. If I look at our recent performances, including the last game we played, I can say that I’m happy with my team.”