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Once an Arsenal outcast, Gervinho's confidence continues to soar at high-flying Roma

Reuters

Gervinho is still waiting for Usain Bolt to pick up the gauntlet. Speaking to the Italian magazine Sportweek shortly before the World Cup this summer, the Roma forward declared that he could beat the world’s fastest man in a 100-meter sprint, with just one tiny proviso: both men would have to dribble a football to the finish line. 

“With a ball at my feet, I would win,” insisted Gervinho. “Running with a ball is totally different: the steps you can take with a ball are not the same as the ones you can make without. Especially if you have long legs like Bolt. So yes, [with those conditions] I could beat him in a contest.” 

A bold claim, perhaps, but one that was indicative of the player’s soaring confidence. Twelve months previously, Gervinho had been an afterthought at Arsenal, made into a scapegoat for the club’s failings up front after fluffing countless gilt-edged opportunities. His sale to Roma for €8 million in August was heralded by some Gunners supporters as a legitimate transfer coup. 

It was hardly a staggering sum, in today’s market, and yet even the Italian club’s executives feared they were being ripped off. They caved in only when the club’s new manager, Rudi Garcia, insisted he knew the player better. Roma’s sporting director, Walter Sabatini, confessed that, “I would not have signed Gervinho for any other coach.”

The forward had excelled under Garcia at Lille, and they had worked well together Le Mans before that. They understood one another in a way that few players and managers do. “He does not have to say much to me to get me ready for a game,” explained Gervinho. “Two or three words and I understand what I have to do. Sometimes just a glance will do it.”

Together, they made one another look brilliant. Gervinho scored nine goals and provided 10 assists – the joint-most of any player in the division – as Roma racked up 85 points, a new club record. It was not enough to catch Juventus, but for a team that had not finished higher than sixth for three seasons, this was still a dramatic form of progress. 

News of his exploits met with a mixed reception back in England. Some Arsenal supporters wondered how this could be the same player who found the net just nine times in two Premier League seasons. Others scoffed and dismissed his achievements as evidence of the weakness of the Italian top flight. 

Gervinho has the opportunity to prove his skeptics wrong this season by excelling on a European stage. He is off to a pretty good start. His performance against CSKA Moscow in Roma’s Champions League opener this month was scintillating, with two goals scored and an assist provided to his team-mate Juan Iturbe. Gazzetta dello Sport summed it up simply as: “pure devastation”. 

Roma hope he can be similarly effective on Tuesday against Manchester City. But they also know the Premier League champions will present a far sterner challenge than the Russian ones did two weeks ago. Manuel Pellegrini’s side have had their lapses this season, but it is unthinkable that they will defend as shoddily as CSKA did at the Stadio Olimpico. 

The onus on Gervinho will be even greater here than it was back then. Juan Iturbe is only just returning from the injury he picked up in that game, and may not play against City – depriving Roma of their only other truly explosive runner up front. Daniele De Rossi has already been ruled out in midfield. 

Gervinho did not score in any of his three matches against City for Arsenal. His performance against them at the Etihad in September 2012 was so poor that one fan set it to Benny Hill music on YouTube. Sent clean through on goal by Aaron Ramsey early in that game, his first touch was so poor that it ran 15 yards ahead of him and straight to goalkeeper Joe Hart. 

Even now, Gervinho knows that his composure in front of goal leaves a lot to be desired. “I need to have icier blood,” he told Sportweek. “But Garcia tells me: you do what you do best. Don’t worry about scoring.”

That is sound advice. Even when Gervinho is not putting the ball in the net himself, the goals tend to flow for Roma whenever he is around. The Giallorossi have scored 76 times in the 38 league fixtures that he has played for them over the last 13 months. They have managed just four in the five he has missed.

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