Coach Paulo Fonseca was in an upbeat mood in the wake of Roma's 6-1 win over SPAL on Wednesday evening. The Giallorossi picked up the biggest win of the boss's tenure so far at the Stadio Paolo Mazza, with Nikola Kalinic, Carles Perez, Aleksandar Kolarov, Bruno Peres (twice) and Nicolo Zaniolo all on the scoresheet. In the process Roma made it four wins from their last five games - and a five-match unbeaten streak heading into the final three games of the Serie A season. Here's what Fonseca made of it all..
Are you pleased with the attitude your players showed tonight?
“Sometimes in games like this, when the other side don’t have anything riding on it, it can be even more dangerous. The players were aggressive and showed the attitude they needed to in order to win. We have some very tired players who have played in pretty much all of the last few games but tonight we were able to rotate a bit, during the game as well – that’s important.”
Seventeen different goalscorers now this season, the second most in the league. Is that something to be pleased with?
“Yes – even if for me the important thing is that we score goals, not who scores them. Right now though our wide players have more opportunity to score because they are more often in the final third. In those circumstances you need clinical players. Carles Perez, for example, scored a great goal and had a good game. This evening I was pleased with the performance of everyone.”
While the wide players have more freedom, do you think that perhaps Bryan Cristante cannot fully express himself in attack in this system?
“Today he played further forward than Amadou Diawara, who has played in almost every game. Only after Amadou went off did Cristante drop back. It’s his first game in that position: I’m pleased with what he did.”
Has the team got the energy to win all three remaining league games?
“The players are motivated and are playing well. We need to make sure we win our games; we must only think about the game against Fiorentina, about making sure some of our tired players are able to recover. Leonardo Spinazzola, Bruno Peres, Kolarov, [Gianluca] Mancini, Diawara – all of them are tired. So it was good to be able to manage them a bit ahead of a tough game like Fiorentina.”
What was the biggest positive for you tonight?
“There were a lot of positives. Smalling came back and did well, as did Zaniolo. Kolarov played well, Bruno is improving – they are all important things for the team. We will have to see how everyone is going into the next match, but as I have said before I don’t really want to change things a lot right now.”
Pau Lopez had a strange night. How is he?
“Pau was not well today, he was vomiting all day. I spoke with him and he told me that he wanted to play. It was a tough day for him.”
(Photo Getty Images)
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Source: legaseriea.it