Pellegrini: We all thought it was a foul on Strootman

The midfielder was pleased to see the Giallorossi fight up until the final whistle - salvaging a point from proceedings through Edin Dzeko's late header.

Nevertheless, he felt Roma deserved more from the contest.

“It’s important because at the end of a game you are losing like that it is always good to at least get a draw,” Pellegrini said. “I thought we played a good game and had a lot of the ball. In some of the recent games, including the one at the San Siro, we’ve done okay for 70 minutes then faded – but this time we kept fighting until the end.”

He added: “We did not make the most of the chances and openings we had. We must improve on this. We scored at the end and hopefully this draw will give us the motivation we need to play a great game on Sunday and win the home game against Samp.”

Pellegrini was asked about the controversy surrounding Sampdoria’s penalty, with Kevin Strootman appearing to be clearly fouled at the other end in the moments leading up to Aleksandar Kolarov’s handballl.

“Kevin said that he thought it was a foul. I saw it live and obviously I also thought it was a free-kick,” Pellegrini noted. “It’s normal that would all think it was a foul. Then I looked across and saw that the linesman was also flagging for a foul.

“There was a moment when everyone stopped to understand [what the referee was doing], even the Samp players. Then the ball was pushed forward and what followed led to the penalty. I thought Kolarov touched it with his knee before his hand, but I haven’t seen it again on TV. Anyway, in the end the penalty was given. We got a draw in the end and that’s that.

“It’s pointless moaning as they don’t hand out extra points afterwards. We are already thinking about Sunday and winning at the Olimpico.”