Spalletti: Wins like this are great for morale

The Roma boss believes the Giallorossi's performance was a marked improvement on recent outings and, while admitting that it was no walkover, says the 3-1 victory is a confidence boost for his men going into a busy week.

“Wins like tonight's are a great morale boost because it was a good win and although we had to fight hard for it we deserved the three points,” Spalletti explained.

Do you think this can be the start of a good run?

“What most sticks in your mind is the way the lads celebrated and hugged each other at the end. It was like a liberation. That shows you our mental state. When it comes to playing a match sometimes the lads find it hard to reproduce things that they're perfectly capable of doing. But apart from the goal we conceded that we shouldn't have, the players showed some good things today and managed to score three goals.”

How would you describe the game?

“What the team needs at the moment is to put in the running and the hard work but at the same time learn to relax again – and they did that towards the end. Frosinone kept harrying us and made it difficult but we came through it well tonight. We moved the ball around with relative ease, which is something I didn't see in the other games. We managed to get lots of things going again.”

Does this win mean you can look at the league table with more confidence too?

“Yes, because at the end of the day that's what our job comes down to – getting points and wins. But when you work in the game you look at other things too. You take into account how you work during the week and you assess the mental aspect – how you go about your mission. Because playing for Roma is a mission.”

The fans are still very demanding though...

“The Roma fans always want more because they're used to seeing great players and great football – teams that have written Italian football history. So they're not satisfied easily and it's hard to change something like that when it's what you're used to. It's up to us to give them something to cheer about.”

Does Edin Dzeko need to help himself more?

“We need to give him more service and better service but he needs to help himself too by showing better movement in certain situations, for example dropping off the shoulder of the centre-back more often to cause problems for the opposition's backline. I took him off today because I wanted to play Francesco Totti and also because we have games close together this week and a number of players – including Edin – are carrying knocks. Francesco played a good half hour. When he drops deep he's second to none in escaping from opponents' clutches but you have to remember his age and the injury problems he's had recently.”