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    Mourinho: "We didn't deserve to lose but we'll have the Olimpico next week"


    Jose Mourinho shared his thoughts after Feyenoord edged their Europa League quarter-final first leg 1-0



    Do you have any updates on the injuries?

    “No, I don't know. But you get an idea on the pitch when they say 'off, off'. There wasn't time to ask lots of questions there and then and I haven't spoken to the players or doctors since the game finished, but it seems obvious to me that Tammy [Abraham] has a problem with his shoulder and Paulo [Dybala]'s injury is muscular.”

    Did Lorenzo Pellegrini go off injured or was it your decision?

    “It was my decision. I've already been asked this and I can answer before you even ask: it had nothing to do with the penalty. When a player misses a penalty, it's as if we'd all missed it together. It's never a problem for me.”

    Roma seemed to lack a bit of hunger and presence in the box at times. Would you agree?

    “We don't have [Erling] Haaland! We have the players we have and we all do our best. The lads worked really hard and had the chances to obtain a completely different result but this is the reality. We've lost the first half 1-0 and we have some difficulties.

    “We have a tough game on Sunday, then we have to go again on Thursday and we don't have lots of players to rotate. We might be without Paulo and Tammy for these two games but we are what we are. With the Olimpico on our side. The Olimpico is always there for us. They never mess up.”

    Do you have a centre-forward problem at the moment?

    “The team is not scoring the goals they should score given the way they're playing. Against Torino on Saturday we had the chance to go 2-0 up and put the game to bed and we didn't. We don't score a lot of goals. If you remember in the second half in Salzburg, we had one, two, three, four chances and we didn't take them, then they went and scored. This is a difficulty we have. If you want to talk about individuals and analyse the stats, it's not a lot of goals for attacking players. But we're a team.”

    In previous games, and especially in Europe, Roma have really got at the opposition from the off.

    “We did that today. People may have expected Feyenoord to attack us from the start but that didn't happen. We tried to make sure it wasn't a one-way match from the first minute. We pressed high, kept the ball and created openings.”

    Are you optimistic?

    “I am optimistic but obviously I'm worried about Sunday because we're a team with limits. And when you lose players – I'm not going to call them 'important' players because the whole team is important – but when you lose players your options are reduced. And that's obviously a cause for concern. But the lads always give everything.

    “Of course we don't think we deserved to lose but undeserved is not a word I like to use in football. We've lost the first half 1-0 and we're playing the second half in Rome. But we're not playing Feyenoord on Sunday; we're playing Udinese and it's Udinese we need to focus on now.”