Spalletti admits defeat leaves side in a difficult spot

Gonzalo Higuain's early strike settled the game for the Bianconeri and, while the coach was happy with passages of play his side produced, Spalletti acknowledged that it was a difficult result to take.

Juventus are now seven points clear of the Giallorossi in the Serie A table, as the season approaches its halfway point.

“This result means Juve can be more relaxed going into their coming league matches," Spalletti said. "We're going to have to be excellent if we want to make up the lost ground.”

He added: “[It leaves us] in a bad place, despite all the pressure we piled on at the end. We needed to come here and get a result. This makes everything that much trickier. They were better than us on the day. We have to accept the result because they showed they were better.”

Were you perhaps just lacking the final ball?

“When we had them pressed back we did a great job of stifling their counter-attacks but our decision-making wasn't always spot on. We could and should have carved out a few more openings. We were clumsy and they managed to soak up the pressure.”

Recently you haven't been scoring as many goals as you were at the start of the season...

“Sometimes you go through spells of two or three games when you don't take as many chances as at other times but it's not something that worries me especially. We've scored loads of goals in the league this season but, yes, we have been finding the net less in recent outings. I'm sure it won't last long.”

Gerson was a surprise choice in the starting line-up...

"Perhaps it was a surprise for people who aren't in touch with our dressing room. He had to be careful after picking up the booking and you must remember that he was put there not to bomb forward but to counter Juve's physical presence – especially in this stadium – and keep tabs on Alex Sandro. I think he did a pretty good job. We had a number of fitness issues to bear in mind too: [Mohamed] Salah might not have been able to finish the game if he'd started and we thought [Stephan] El Shaarawy could be useful coming off the bench.”

Have Roma grown in character?

“Player for player I thought we did well today, but only after they took the lead. You have less to lose once you fall behind but we could have avoided conceding that goal. We needed to be stronger physically and show more character in those opening 10 minutes.”