Mancini: We felt we were better than Inter

Gianluca Mancini was one of the key performers against Inter Milan on Saturday night, as the Giallorossi came from behind to win 2-1 at San Siro.

Here's what the defender had to say after the match...

An important win after losing against Atalanta last time out...

"We lost against Atalanta, but we felt like we had put in our best performance of the season to date. Today we came here to take our chances, we felt like we were better than the opposition. We had to dig in, we had to fight for every ball, but we got the result in the end."

After Chris Smalling's goal you can see on the replay that you say, 'We are better than them'. Was that to give the side a boost?

"As I said before, those who have played the game know that you get those sort of feelings, that you want to always have ... and today that's how we felt. We made it 1-1 through Paulo Dybala, and then after Smalling scored I felt it necessary to say that. Today Roma were better than Inter."

Why didn't you push up into the Inter half when it was 0-0? You only seemed to start to do that after you went behind...

"It's true. We didn't play how we had prepared for this one during the first 10 or 15 minutes. We didn't go and try and engage them high up the pitch, but that is what the boss wanted us to do. He wanted us to just leave Acerbi to play the ball. It's something we need to work on, but it's not down to the tactical setup of the coach and his staff. They prepare us and it's down to us to execute better on the pitch. We need to better engage the other teams."

What did you make of the decision to start the game without a true centre forward?

"We didn't train much this week as a group - only on Friday were we all here. The coach hid what he was thinking from us a bit too, actually. But today he told us the formation. We took it all normally - we have a lot of great forwards. When Tammy came on he was a big help for us.

"With a squad like this everyone needs to be ready to come on and help out. So well done to the group today."

Is there a secret to your success from dead-ball situations?

"Like everything, we work on those situations in training. There are two crucial aspects, though. First of all who takes the free-kicks, because that's basically what half the goal comes down to, and then who rises highest, whether it's me or Chris Smalling or Tammy or whoever.

"Clearly it's something that is going to be difficult to defend against and you have to be absolutely committed to doing so. Conceding goals from set-pieces is always something that is tough to stomach."