Roma boss Daniele De Rossi is of the view that Leeds United loanee Diego Llorente has tremendous abilities, which he thinks are being wasted as a defender.
The 30-year-old centre-back joined Roma on a season-long loan from Leeds following the Whites’ relegation from the Premier League.
Llorente has been a regular in Roma’s starting line-up this season and on Sunday, his goal in the 95th minute helped Giallorossi seal a draw against Fiorentina to keep their Champions League qualification hopes alive.
De Rossi hailed the Leeds loanee as a quality player and pointed out that his excellent footwork abilities are almost being wasted as a defender.
The Roma boss also stressed that Llorente has great match-reading ability and pointed out that the Leeds defender has shown throughout his career that he can score important goals.
“Diego is a quality player – he’s almost wasted as a defender”, De Rossi told Roma’s official site.
“He’s got tremendous ability with his feet and is great at reading the game.
“He’s already shown previously in his career that he can score such goals.
“Evan [Ndicka] found him with a great header but he still had a lot of work to do, and he did wonderfully to finish the move off.”
Roma have an option to buy clause in Llorente’s deal and it remains to be seen whether they will try to make the Leeds loanee’s move permanent in the summer.
