Spalletti: One of our best performances so far

“We were playing an excellent team tonight and we showed we were up for it,” the boss said after watching the Giallorossi triumph by a 3-1 scoreline at the Stadio Castellani. “It was a superb result, I think one of our best performances so far. It was a huge performance.”

The team seems to be making giant strides forwards in terms of their tactical versatility.

“The boys are comfortable with the system we used today but of course there are always things to work on. The lads who had been playing a bit less came in and did well, so they won't end up killing each other. We're all very much alive and we're a great team.”

Totti too?

“I wanted to bring him on tonight with my last substitution, also given the way we were passing it around. But then we started finding it harder to work our way forward and we needed to be able to switch from defence to attack in an instant. I've spoken about this before and I'm as sorry about it as the next person.”

There were some images of you in the away stand today...

“That's another great result – having all those fans behind us tonight, and seeing the Curva packed out at the Olimpico and half the main stand full as well. We're definitely stronger with our fans behind us. They gave us a huge hand today and hopefully everything will get sorted out soon.”

With another win under your belts do you think you might be able to pull off a shock against Real?

“It's an almost impossible task but we played really well in the first leg and could have scored two goals ourselves so we'll go there and give it our best shot.”

How big a win was this?

“In football there are winners and there are the nearly men. People often say the nearly men “played well but didn't win”. Today Roma showed they can come to a place like this and win and that's a great result.”