Di Francesco: The only thing missing was a winning goal

Di Francesco watched his side fail to break the deadlock at the Stadio Bentegodi, despite dominating the play and having almost 30 shots on goal.

Chievo goalkeeper Stefano Sorrentino was equal to everything, however, and the boss was at pains not to overreact despite another "two points lost".

"When you create so much, have 70% possession, send in 30 crosses and have 30 shots on goal, the only thing that’s missing is a goal," Di Francesco said. "Sometimes people make their assessments solely thinking about the result. But looking at the dynamics out there on the pitch – it was a one-sided affair.

"Of course you may have to deal with some counter attacks – we left them some space as we pushed forward to get that all-important goal. Unfortunately it never came. We passed up so many chances: it wasn’t clearness of thought that was lacking, but ruthlessness in front of goal.

"This was the kind of match and the kind of performance I expected. We dominated the game and the numbers illustrate that.”

The team didn’t appear to be too happy with the referee.

“We can’t fall into that trap. Perhaps there were a few too many fouls and too few yellow cards handed out. But we can’t be relying on refereeing. The biggest mistake we can make is not focusing on ourselves, first and foremost.”

It was an excellent showing in the second half, but you lacked a bit of cutting edge in the first – the team’s crossing and passing wasn’t decisive enough. Why was that?

“The numbers tell a different story, I feel. We had a double chance in the first half, with Gerson. [Aleksandar] Kolarov put in some very good balls but we didn’t make the most of them. You can never be perfect for 90 minutes, but given the dynamics of the game and the situations we created, we deserved a goal. We didn’t score and that’s our fault, full stop. We take a point, knowing that we need to be more clinical in front of goal.

"We also need to work on getting more men into the box. When you know a player with good crossing ability is about to play the ball in, you need to make sure you find a spot and hope you’re in the right place. In the second half, we perhaps did this with greater conviction. We deserved to win this game.

"When Chievo drew with Napoli they gave absolutely nothing away to their opponents. Today, on the other hand, we created a great deal and I’m happy with that. I’m less happy with the fact that we didn’t convert those chances.”

You have the best defence in the league, but you’ve only scored 27 goals this season. What’s that down to? The fact Edin Dzeko hasn’t scored many?

“We can’t just expect Edin to score. Those goals will come eventually. I’m very happy with the balance we have – goals aside, we’re giving up very little to our opponents, always trying to play high up the pitch and in an aggressive manner. That’s a positive for us. But we aren’t scoring as many as we could – it would help us build a bit of confidence and momentum.”

Patrik Schick made his first start for seven months. He led the line today – was that just an experiment?

“Patrik can play there or out wide, offering us something different. If you look at the game closely you can see I used him in both roles today.”

Are Roma still in the hunt for the Scudetto?

“Roma need to keep developing and adding to our points total. We went out there to win today. We didn’t start the season as one of the favourites to win the league – at least we’ve not been viewed in that way so far. I’m convinced we’ve got huge potential to develop.”

Who would you like to draw in the Champions League? Who do you want to avoid?

“I was only thinking about Chievo today. I have nothing to say about that. I must be honest – we’ll draw who we draw. We’re calm. The last-16 of the Champions League is always significant and tough.”

What do you think of what Monchi has said about your contract renewal?

“We haven’t spoken about renewing my contract. I’m a professional and I’m staying calm. I agree with him – at Sassuolo I agreed my contracts with handshake. The same applies here at Roma, and I’m lucky in that sense.”