Show of strength delights Spalletti

AS Roma coach Luciano Spalletti praised his side's resilience after they made light of a string of injuries to defeat FC Dynamo Kyiv 4-1 to confirm their place in the UEFA Champions League last 16. Roma were without Francesco Totti, Philippe Mexes, Alberto Aquilani and Simone Perrotta but still ran out comfortable winners thanks to goals from Christian Panucci and Ludovic Giuly follwed by two from Mirko Vučinić. Dynamo were also weakened by injury and coach Oleh Luzhny bemoaned his side's lack of strength in depth as defeat ended their hopes of reaching the UEFA Cup.

Luciano Spalletti, Roma coach
Our lads played so well they deserved better than having to settle for second place in the group. We deserved to fight for first place but Manchester [United FC] played like they did [and beat Sporting Clube de Portugal] and there is nothing we can do. I fielded Taddei to see how he would cope but he got tired quite quickly so I took him off, but there is nothing serious the matter with him. I have always said you need a squad of players capable of replacing those who are out. Roma have such a squad. You just have to find the right balance. It's not important who scored the first goal, what is important is that the team played well and produced the right result. Football is a team sport and individual achievements are not that important. The Manchester United match [on Matchday 6] will not be easy for us because we have our honour to play for and must perform well in front of our fans. Today we won because we were trying hard, we were focused and approached the match with the right mentality.

Oleh Luzhny, Dynamo coach
[Goalkeeper] Olexandr Rybka played normally, but I couldn't see the first goal we conceded properly so it is difficult for me to tell [what happened]. I fielded all the players we had who were capable of getting on to the pitch tonight. We lost because we lacked concentration from the very first minutes and because of slack defending, especially from our centre-backs. We have no other players. We cannot rise higher than the level of the Ukrainian league.