Gagliardini isn't great defensively either. He lacks the positional awareness of a true DM or even a more defensively solid CM like Strootman. He's not bad at breaking up attacks in the center of the park but he'd do better with a real DM behind him and in that scenario he's probably interchangeable with Vecino.
Like n4l posted in another thread, and I agree with the analysis completely, Spalletti's Roma has previously worked with a midfield consisting of a DM in De Rossi, a defensive CM in Strootman and an attacking CM in Nainggolan. We lack the personnel to copy such a framework. We don't have a DM and as I just mentioned, I think Gagliardini (and Vecino) lack the ability to do the defensive CM role as well as Strootman. I think Brozovic is a viable alternative to Nainggolan in the attacking CM role as is Joao Mario - he has some decent close control with his dribbling and passing, but he obviously needs to vastly improve his end product with some of killer edge.
While it could be nice, I don't necessarily think we need to emulate that Roma model closely. Spalletti has proven himself very adaptable - just see the difference between his first and second Roma stints. I'm relatively convinced he can make things work with the personnel available but in my eyes, it requires the midfield to work comprehensively as a unit. The way I see it, we lack "specialists" in midfield. We don't have a true DM like De Rossi, nor a true AM a la Sneijder. Don't get me wrong though, we have a good bunch of relatively well-rounded CM's. Therefore, the three players need to attack together, which we're doing overall pretty good IMO, but more importantly, defend together which I think we've been disappointing and completely dismal at times.
The amount of times we've conceded goals or dangerous attacks where neither Gagliardini or Vecino aren't even on my screen, is unacceptable. Obviously these things like cohesion take time but we need to improve.
