"But I feel good that we have a great foundation, we just need to add a couple of pieces, primarily because of potentially people on loan, more than anything else, but I feel really good about where we are at.

“I’m really excited about what is going on the stadium side for us too.”

The fact of the matter is trust. Roma fans have to trust the work you are doing with Walter, Mauro, Italo and others because you want to build something…

“I think as I said, the first couple of years we had a lot of work to do. We brought in some great players. We had to make trades, unfortunately for some players, where we needed to get the capital accounts in order – we had to do it, it’s UEFA guidelines. There is not a choice on some of this stuff. There really isn’t.

“Something I learned is that the transfer market and the accounting side of it in football is unlike any other accounting I’ve seen, in sports certainly. The only one more bizarre in some ways, to me, is the accounting done for movie companies. So we just had a lot of work. I think we are basically there.

“I think Ricky and Bruno Conti and specifically more Bruno and some of his guys, and Alex Zecca working with the academies in the US, and few other countries – right now I think we have the best academy programme in the US right now thanks to the work Alex has done over the last two years. Bruno has worked a lot with Alex and others to have a good programme, not just in the US, but in other countries.

“We have made some big changes in the last few months in how we are scouting in Italy, which I think is incredibly important. My goal, and it takes work, is to have the best programme in Italy for young players, to come to Rome, to find them and give them a good home.

“I wish things could change just like the flick of a switch and stuff but I try to look to the future and I could not be happier about the way stuff at Trigoria is going right now. I’m talking about the process, which is so important, and the process which we are putting in place, not just for the first team but you can see it with the Primavera team, you can see it with the great job [Alberto De Rossi] is doing with the team.

“It was hilarious to hear people saying a few months ago, ‘Oh, they don’t want Bruno Conti’, or all this other bullshit. We developed a better role that was more important for Roma and taking advantage of Bruno’s strengths for us. And now Bruno has been putting together some great stuff at Trigoria and with Alex and others and it is really going well with what we are trying to build on the youth side.

“It takes time. I think most of the people, maybe I’m wrong, do trust what we’re doing. I know everyone is frustrated, we want to win a Scudetto and we want this and we want that. We are getting there.

“We’ve made a few mistakes, we’ve rectified stuff, we still have stuff to do to get better and we will. I have no intention of going anyway. I’ve said before, you’re stuck with me for a long, long period of time. I’ve got a stadium to build now too, you know.”