Fonseca: Pastore or Santon could play in midfield

What are the difficulties of tomorrow's match? Do you expect a reaction from Sampdoria?

"I expect a difficult game, in the last ten away games against Sampdoria Roma have won only two. So it's a complicated game. There was also the change of coach, which leads them to a positive reaction from the team, there is also the weather issue - all factors that make the challenge difficult, but we are ready."

Both Perotti and Florenzi have returned to training: how are they looking ahead of tomorrow's challenge?

"Perotti returned to the group last week on a regular basis and will travel with the team. The same goes for Florenzi: he is available."

Can you give us some indications on Dzeko? Are you thinking of a symbolic call-up to bring him along with the group?

"A symbolic call-up will not happen: either the player is in condition and fully available or does not travel. He started training for two days - and trained well - with a protective mask. Obviously the conditions are not ideal. Today we will do a finishing training and we will understand if we can rely on him."

How is Javier Pastore? Has his condition improved? Is he ready to play tomorrow?

“Pastore is ready to play. He trained very well over the past two weeks – he’s in good physical shape, motivated and is improving day by day. He’s ready to play if I see fit.”

Are you happy with the result of the appeal against your ban? How will you manage the match from the stands?

“This matter is closed, as far as I’m concerned. There’s a ban, which I will serve. I’ve got nothing else to add on this topic.”

We’re got another run of games and you only have Bryan Cristante and Jordan Veretout to play in central midfield. Is there anyone else who can play in that part of the pitch?

“Pastore. Right now we’ve got him and [Davide] Santon. We’ve tried both of them in that position, for if Cristante or Veretout are unavailable.”

What would you suggest could reduce the number of injuries that appear to be hitting teams at the moment?

"Thank you for that question, because I recently expressed my concerns about this problem, which is affecting all teams. The players are involved on all fronts, with clubs and with the national teams. New injuries are occurring every week – we’ve seen many cases of this kind. So I’ll take this opportunity to raise the issue again. A few days ago, I read an interview with [Thomas] Tuchel, the PSG coach, in which he pointed out that right now we are slaughtering the top players. It isn’t humanly possible to play so many games in such a short space of time. The top players are the ones who are most affected. Those who run football at the top level should manage this issue, because the top players are the one’s suffering injuries in this period. People pay their money to see the best players. In my opinion, at club and international level there are too many matches. The players don't have time to recover; once the league season is over, you’ve got the Euros, the World Cup or the African Cup. The best players only have 10 or 12 days to recover after an exhausting season – it’s not enough time and these injuries prove it.”

How will you manage the game from the stands? Will it be different from other games? Has this ever happened to you before?

"There can be no direct contact with the players. The difference is that I'll talk to the team at the hotel, while we usually do that at the stadium. There I’ll trust Nuno Campos to look after the side. I’ve worked with him since the beginning of my career; there is maximum trust and maximum understanding – we don’t even need to talk to understand each other, because he understands what is happening on the pitch.”

Recently you’ve had a tough time scoring goals. Have you worked on improving that?

“That’s something that we’re working on. I’d be worried if the team were failing to create chances. Against Cagliari we had ten chances to score, and that was against a team that sat deep and compact. We’re trying to improve our finishing, which is an important aspect. We focused on that with the players during the week.”

There was that tweet from Cengiz Under and other Turkey players during the week. Seeing as Roma have a code of conduct on social media, I wanted to know if you’d looked at it with the team and the player, because it could be interpreted in different ways.

“I won’t reveal what was said within the team and the group. This morning I read, in a Portuguese newspaper, an interview with [Jorge] Valdano, someone I like a lot. He was talking about the situation in Barcelona and Catalonia and said that football and politics should not ‘sleep in the same room’ – it’s an expression I like and agree with. For me, football and politics are two separate, distinct things and shouldn’t even be in the same house. I don’t like mixing football and politics in our job.”

Claudio Ranieri is often very focused on defence. Are you expecting them to sit deep?

“Ranieri is a great manager – he’s very skilled. Having taken over a struggling team, he’ll look to give the team some defensive stability. That’s how it works – if a team can’t defend properly, it can’t win games, especially in a period when they’re lacking in confidence. I’m expecting a difficult encounter, against a compact side who will sit back and look to hit us on the counter. We’ll have to make sure we nullify that approach. It’ll be a hard fought match at certain points and the initiative will most likely be with us.”

Nuno Romano seems to be a very passionate person. Can you confirm that he’ll no longer sit next to you on the bench?

“Nuno is a top professional but also an impassioned, excitable person. He gets fully involved in what he does. We’ve spoken about this situation – it’ll stay between us and there’s nothing else to add. We need to learn from these situations. In general, there’s always something to be learned.”