Digne keen to stay at Roma

On-loan Roma defender Lucas Digne says he would welcome an extended stay at the Stadio Olimpico despite a tricky few months since leaving Paris Saint-Germain on loan.

The France international swapped Ligue 1 for Serie A in August on a season-long loan for a fee of €2.5million – a deal that includes an option for it to be made permanent ahead of the 2016-17 campaign.

While the left-back has featured regularly for Roma, the club replaced coach Rudi Garcia with Luciano Spalletti last week after some rocky results in Serie A as well as a Coppa Italia exit to second-tier Spezia.

And Digne told Roma Radio: “I’m delighted to be playing with this team. I would like to stay here but the final decision isn’t down to me.

“I’m playing for a great side and a massive club. I like the city too – it’s even more beautiful than I was expecting. It’s wonderful.”

Roma were held to a 1-1 draw by Verona on Sunday in Spalletti’s first game back and sit fifth in the table – nine points off leaders Napoli.

Digne’s arrival alongside Mohamed Salah and Edin Dzeko led to high expectations before the season began but the Frenchman maintains all is not lost for last season’s runners-up.

“[Garcia and Spalletti are] different but both of them are great coaches,” he added. “They have different methods and we focus on different things now.

“We’ve not had a massive amount of time to work with Spalletti as things stand but we’ll have more time this week.

“It’s true that there were a lot of expectations at the start of the season. We need to try to get back in a position where we can achieve what we wanted at the start of the year as soon as possible.

“We’ve had a period where things haven’t gone as we wanted so now it’s important we achieve some consistency in our results.”