AS Roma will not focus only on Mohamed Salah when they tackle Liverpool in Tuesday's Champions League semi-final clash, according to coach Eusebio Di Francesco and Aleksandar Kolarov
The Serie A outfit will take to Anfield for the first leg of the last-four ties against a Jurgen Klopp’s side headlined by their former player, Salah.
Salah only became a Red in the summer, joining from Roma after a successful two-year stint at the Stadio Olimpico outfit. The 25-year-old has been in irrepressible form since his switch, scoring 41 goals so far.
Although wary of a threat he is, his former coach has insisted that his game plan is not solely fixed on trying to nullify the Egypt international’s advances.
"I can assure you that we didn't prepare the match based on Salah,” Di Francesco said in his pre-match briefing.
"Plus Salah is not [a Roma player] anymore and my philosophy is to look forward, to move on. Once again, we didn't prepare the match focusing on individual players. Obviously, we will have special attention to their best players, not only Salah."
Reiterating his coach’s stance, left-back Kolarov believes the Giallorossi has more to do than ‘stopping one player’.
"Against Barca, we played as a team, we didn't focus on [Lionel] Messi and, by playing in this way, we can achieve great things,” Kolarov said.
"We can't win this game by only stopping one player, we need to focus as a team. Liverpool is not only Salah, Liverpool has a number of good players. They play at a high pace and we need to take care of our details."