De Sanctis: None of us gave enough

The Italian stressed that every single member of the team could have given more, especially when trying to create problems for the opposition.

"We cannot shirk our responsibility," the Giallorossi goalkeeper began. "It seemed clear to me that everyone could have done something more in terms of self-belief, dynamism, freshness and desire to step up to the plate, offering that little bit extra to help the team get results."

De Sanctis then expanded further on the possible reasons why Roma laboured to a penalty-shootout defeat against Spezia that spelled the end of the team's participation in the Coppa Italia.

"In 120 minutes, we struggled to sparkle in attack and give Spezia's backline headaches – this has been a trend for us recently. I'm not just talking about the forwards, goals can come from defenders at set pieces, through midfielders or with wingers putting in excellent performances."

It seemed that Roma had found their self-belief again after the Napoli game. What happened today?

"Taking the last few performances, against BATE Borisov you could use the fact that a draw was enough to qualify as justification, while we created little but defended brilliantly in Naples. Today we were still missing that spark and we couldn't cause problems for our opponents. Congratulations to Spezia, but with all respect to them we should have done more."

What do you think is the reason for the team's poor form at the moment?

"Since we came back from the international break, we haven't looked dangerous in games any more. The pitch was a major factor in Bologna, the ref could have managed the penalty situation better against Torino, Atalanta deserved to beat us and we were never in the game against Barcelona. Then we've picked up three draws in the last three matches – without scoring a single goal – so it's obvious we have to do something more. I'm not limiting myself to the forwards however, everybody needs to give a bit extra."