Goals are the quickest route to a manager’s heart and Roma boss Gian Piero Gasperini\u00a0appears to have softened considerably on Evan Ferguson after last night’s brace from the Ireland striker at Celtic Park.<\/p>\n
Ferguson scored twice in the first half as Roma eased to a 3-0 win over Celtic, the on-loan Brighton man’s first goals in European competition.<\/p>\n
The second, in particular, was beautifully finished, an instant control and swivel in the box that bamboozled Ireland colleague Liam Scales, who also headed an own-goal to put Roma ahead.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Gasperini had appeared dispondent about Roma’s chances of getting much more value out of Ferguson, suggesting he’d had plenty of chances and appearing to question his attitude in training.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, that tune changed in Glasgow, with Gasperini now preaching patience.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the game. he did what he often does in training. He\u2019s a young lad and we have to be patient,\u201d Gasperini told Sky Sport Italia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis second goal was beautiful. His performance was great, and it\u2019s important that he plays with this spirit and shows his qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports in Italy had suggested Ferguson would be on his way back to Brighton in the transfer window, but of his potential January business Gasperini added: \u201cWe have to be patient. These young guys could come good. Maybe it\u2019s better that way rather than relying on the market. We\u2019ll talk about the January window moving forwards, now, we have several important games to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on Friday following Ferguson’s brace, Brighton and Hove Albion manager Fabian Hurzeler admitted Ferguson remains an option for the Seagulls after it was confirmed that striker Stefanos Tzimas is out for the season with an ACL injury.<\/p>\n
“Stefanos Tzimas will miss the whole of the season. I hope he will be back in pre-season,” said Hurzeler.<\/p>\n
“He has already started his rehab. He will have surgery soon. We have big trust in the doctors and in our medical department. We are quite convinced that he will be back as quickly as possible and in even better shape.<\/p>\n
“Evan is a player for us, that is why he will always be an option. At the moment he is on loan but we follow it, we are pleased how he performed yesterday. Of course we all follow it, so definitely he might be an option.”<\/p>\n
Ferguson, meanwhile, was diplomatic following his best night in a Roma shirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always trained hard and always tried to give my all. Tonight it went well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGasperini tries to push me and the whole team to the max every day. He expects a lot from me and that\u2019s why we work well together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the Celtic experience, he added, \u201cI enjoy playing in this kind of atmosphere. I\u2019m Irish and here I felt almost at home.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Goals are the quickest route to a manager’s heart and Roma boss Gian Piero Gasperini\u00a0appears to have softened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1113,61,60,2539,5782,5783,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-188076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-fai","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-league-of-ireland","12":"tag-local-soccer","13":"tag-premiership","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}