El Shaarawy won’t shy away from Roma Scudetto dream

Stephan El Shaarawy insists Roma’s objective is to ‘stay up there for as long as possible’ in the Scudetto race. ‘We are on the right track.’

The Giallorossi went into the break for international duty as joint Serie A leaders alongside Inter, an unexpected result considering they are under a new coach in Gian Piero Gasperini with a very specific style of football.

It comes on the heels of a campaign where they went through three tacticians and eventually pushed Juventus all the way for fourth place.

“Every year the club tries to set up a squad and staff who are up to the history of Roma, so we always start out aiming to form a winning team,” El Shaarawy told Sky Sport Italia.

“We saw Claudio Ranieri as a coach and now a director, he chose a great tactician like Gasperini, so it definitely helps to have someone who knows Roma well. We started strong and feel that this time we really are on the right track.”

While their defensive record has been excellent, scoring goals represented a problem, especially now with injuries for Artem Dovbyk, Paulo Dybala, Evan Ferguson and Leon Bailey.

“I want to see the glass half full, because despite having the ninth best attack in Serie A, we are top of the table alongside Inter,” noted El Shaarawy.

“I can see in the analysis of the games that we have created many scoring opportunities. If we manage to improve our finishing, then I think we really will become a complete team.

“There’s work to be done, but again I feel we’re on the right path and can be protagonists for a while.”

Having marked an era with Atalanta for nine years, culminating in the Europa League triumph, Gasperini is now hoping to do the same at the Stadio Olimpico.

“Gasperini has this ability to get the best out of all his players, both individually and as part of a collective.”

Considering their strong start, can Roma genuinely challenge for the Scudetto this season?

“It is still too early to say,” warned El Shaarawy.

“There isn’t yet a team that we can see totally dominating the league, but we know the quality of the sides out there, like Inter and Napoli.

“We are only at the beginning, but our objective is to stay up there as long as possible, because I see a team with real margin for improvement.”