AS Roma chief Tiago Pinto is proud of three key signings he's made.

Pinto was reflecting on the deals for Romelu Lukaku and Paulo Dybala.

He said, "To them I add (Jose) Mourinho. These are the three names that no one expected would arrive. The first thing is to show the ownership's ambition, then we were good in these three situations in terms of timing.

"Then Mourinho, Dybala and Lukaku understood that they won't find the love they can find here elsewhere. In the case of Paulo and Romelu, if we had fought with the clubs that wanted them at the start of the transfer window we wouldn't have made it.

"This is why I say that timing was fundamental. We closed these two negotiations in five days."