”At the beginning of my time, in April, I had, I don’t know, one million individual meetings! And [the players] told me what was their idea. I said: ‘Yes, help me to stay up, and then I help you to leave’. If you don’t help me to stay up, you stay underwater with me!
”But Romero with me was unbelievable. Top. In his behaviour, his respect, he suffered when he did not play the last game. It is not true that he wanted to leave for Argentina to prepare for their World Cup. It’s not true.
”After the semi-final [against England] we text a message, but I never called him to convince him to stay. I respected what he told me. Like for Vicario, like for every player.
“What I say to you, is the same I said to Djed and to Lucas - ‘I would like you to stay’,” he explained. “Not ‘I want you to stay’. ‘I would like you stay if you want to stay. If you don’t want to stay, if you want to leave, you have to leave’. If you want to leave, speak with Vinai [Venkatesham] and Johan, because I don’t manage the price, the sale.
”I can speak with Vinai and Johan about the best strategy, but I don’t decide £30m, £40m, that’s not my position and I don’t want to change my position. It’s tough enough to be a coach and I want to stay as a coach.
“But I respected the player’s ideas and opinions or projects. But if they stay, they have to stay following my rules, decisions on the pitch. After two games, three games, if one player is not playing and he starts to be sad or not correct with the other players, the coaches, staff, the club, we would make a big, big mistake because we didn’t learn from the past season.”