Fonseca: We still need to get better in the final third

The game at the Bentigodi gets underway at 20:45 local time.

Thursday's win in Istanbul has reignited enthusiasm around the team. What are the dangers going into this game against Verona?

“Istanbul is in the past and we have to focus on nothing but Verona now. It will be a difficult match against a very good team who are aggressive in defence and quick on the counter. They have the league's second-best defence too, which is something we must bear in mind. It's going to be tough.”

How have things changed now that you have more players available?

“It's better when we have everyone fit. It's harder to decide who to pick but it's better to have everyone available.”

Can Henrikh Mkhitaryan play the full 90 minutes?

“He's ready to play but not the whole game. He's training well and getting better by the day. He's the sort of player who can help the team at any time. In terms of fitness though, he can't go the full 90 minutes just yet.”

Who will play at right-back?

“We have three options there: [Davide] Santon, [Leonardo] Spinazzola and [Alessandro] Florenzi. Alessandro is ready – he's trained with us the last few days. When picking the team I also consider the opponents and the sort of game we have to face.”

Did you expect more from Justin Kluivert? Where can he improve further?

“When I joined Roma, he needed to improve the defensive side of his game. We've worked a lot on that and he looks a different player now when we don't have the ball. He's a smart, young lad and he needs to keep working to improve his decision-making in the final third. We're working with him and he has time to improve. He's playing well at the moment.”

Might Gianluca Mancini be rested tomorrow?

“No, Mancini will play tomorrow.”

You often talk about courage and ambition. Which of the two do you think is more important?

“They're both important. We must always play with those ideas in mind – they're very important for this team.”

Is there anything in particular that you'd like to see the team doing better?

“We're in better shape now as lots of players have recovered from injury but we must keep working to learn and improve in many areas. We're quite solid defensively but I'd like to see us dominating opponents more. That's not easy in Italy. If you look at the possession percentages, there's not much difference between the two teams. I'd like us to keep the ball more and spend more time in the final third. We must improve our organised attacks.”

With Bryan Cristante on his way back, will you still look to bring in a midfielder in the January window?

“No, we're not looking for a player to cover Cristante's position.”

Now that Amadou Diawara is available again, your 4-2-3-1 can switch to a 4-3-3 with Pellegrini moving out to the right. Is that an option you're considering?

“As always, it depends on the players' skill sets. I like Pellegrini playing further forward on the right but there are lots of tactical considerations that I can't go into here.”

Verona defend in a similar way to Atalanta. Are you working on a particular way of playing against teams like that?

“That's true – they are similar sides, especially when defending. It's something we worked on in training today but I'm not going to discuss it here or Verona will know everything about us. In any case, we've prepared to face teams who man-mark.”

Edin Dzeko gave the captain's armband to Chris Smalling on Thursday. What sort of message does that send out?

“I could say it was my decision but it wasn't. At the time we didn't have Florenzi, Pellegrini, [Federico] Fazio, [Aleksandar] Kolarov or [Bryan] Cristante on the pitch. I wasn't sure who should take the armband and Dzeko decided to give it to Smalling. I think it was a good call. Sometimes you don't need to tell players what to do – they know themselves who the leaders are out there.”