Mourinho: “We're a tough proposition for anyone”

Read what the boss had to say....

Which players have recovered for this game? And what can you tell us about Dean Huijsen?

“No players have recovered. Is [Gianluca] Mancini able to play? Yes, I think so. But we can't say he's recovered because he hasn't.

“All the others – as we know – are long-term injuries: [Chris] Smalling, Tammy [Abraham]... Renato [Sanches] is injured now too. There are no others who have recovered.

“Obviously this is a tough game, against tough opponents. Atalanta are a great team, with great players. It's going to be difficult, as our previous games have been. We've had Napoli, Juventus, next we have Lazio, then Milan. That's the level of opponents we're up against in this period – it never drops.

“Everyone knows about Huijsen. He's an 18-year-old kid with 10 minutes of Serie A football to his name but he's also one of the brightest prospects in Europe at that age. He'll become a fantastic footballer.

“Given the situation we're in – which is difficult at all levels because we don't have players available and the FFP situation is a huge limit – this is the solution that was found to help us and for us to help him develop, because he's not a player of ours – he's a Juventus player.”

Tomorrow's opponents Atalanta are a top-level side.

“They have the lot: quality, experience, options. They've had the same coach for many years, the same philosophy, the same way of playing. It's all very empathetic.

“They're a team who can play with their eyes closed, who understand their coach with their eyes closed. They have the ideal players for the way they play. They're a very difficult team. We beat them two years ago, last year we lost but at home we played one of our best games at the Olimpico and tried to win, even though we lost.

“We know it's always tricky against them but we're a tough proposition ourselves. We're not easy for anyone. We always find strength in our difficulties and I'm sure they'll know it won't be at all easy.”

I'd like to ask for your opinion on these two and a half years with Tiago Pinto as general manager, as it's now official that he will leave at the end of the transfer window. I'd also like to ask if the next sporting director should be chosen based on the type of coach who will be at Roma over the coming years.

“A coach commenting on a director is not my thing. I'm always very respectful of the hierarchy. I'm here, the director is here [higher] and the owners are here [even higher]. I may have many years of experience behind me but it's not my place to comment on the work of a superior. I'm not able to do that.

“What I can do is wish him all the best. He knows that because we're friends. He knows I wish him the best. It's a decision he's made and it should be respected. Wherever I am and wherever he is, I'll always wish him the best. But it's not for me to assess his work. He has to assess me, not me him.

“The same goes for the future. The director is here, the owners are here. It's not the coach's place to comment on that in any way.

“If that sort of question is asked internally, privately, and there's confidence in my view, my experience, then obviously internally we're a family and we all speak and give our opinions.

“But publicly I refuse to enter an area that is not mine to enter: [indicating a pyramid] coach, director and owners. I remain here. I don't go any further.”

In recent weeks you've made it very clear where you would like your future to be: you'd be very happy to remain at Roma. And you said that while you haven't discussed a new contract, you're in constant contact with the owners. Have you asked yourself why your contract hasn't been renewed? I've come with three possible answers. The first is they've suddenly become football experts and prefer a different style, like [Zdenek] Zeman, for example, or the Netherlands side of '74, or Vittorio Pozzo. The second is that they expected more. The third is that maybe someone has advised them to take their take their time and wait. Do you think all three of these are equally possible or is one perhaps more likely that the others?

“That's your analysis, your interpretation. You're a journalist so it's up to you to do that, to write that, if you're so inclined. I don't want to get into that.”

Have you asked yourself any questions?

“To myself? Yes, of course.”

And have you given yourself any answers?

“To myself? Objective, clear, 100%, no.”

When will Huijsen be available? And going back to what you were saying about him, have you thought about the future, if it's possible to buy him in the summer? What about Chris Smalling? Is he nearing a return or still a long way off?

“There's no update on Smalling. I don't even hope to see him training with me in January. If he does train with me in January, it will be a pleasant surprise. At the moment, Smalling is not even in my thoughts. I'm thinking of whether Mancini can play, whether he might play today and not tomorrow, whether he might get injured and not be able to play or train for a week or two. That's the sort of player who's in my thoughts at the moment.

“Could [Leo] Paredes play tomorrow? I don't know. He took a nasty knock against Cremonese and hasn't trained. We were worried there might have been a fracture. There's no fracture. He's had all the tests. I don't know if he can play tomorrow. But that's the sort of player I worry about. Not Tammy or Smalling – they're not the sort of player I'm thinking about.”

Huijsen?

“Legally, he's able to play. He arrived at the hotel last night and trained with the team for an hour today. He had a meeting with me by way of an introduction to the way we play, our philosophy.

“If you're asking if he's ready to play, if he has to play, he'll play. He has a lot of self-confidence and self-belief. He doesn't have Serie A experience but he has the confidence you typically see in players with big potential.

“His first game for Roma will basically be his Serie A debut, because the 10 minutes he played against Milan don't count for much.

“The centre-backs we have for tomorrow are [Diego] Llorente, Mancini and Huijsen. Then whatever we can have from Bryan [Cristante], [Zeki] Celik, [Rasmus] Kristensen – they're all makeshift solutions.”

Apart from in defence, there's an emergency in midfield too, with no Sanches or Houssem Aouar, and with Paredes not at his best. What condition is Lorenzo Pellegrini in? Are the three midfielders who are available, including Cristante who sometimes plays in defence as well, ready to play the next three intense matches?

“Angelo [Mangiante] knows I have a good relationship with tennis. Once I was talking to one of the greatest of all time – one of the three greatest – and he told me there aren't many matches in a season when he's 100%, without the slightest niggle, a minor problem of some sort. Very few times. And we're talking about one of the greatest.

“Yesterday I was talking to another player, not one of the greatest of all time but a good tennis player, and he told me that fatigue is only mental, not physical. But it is physical as well. It's tough. If you tell your midfielders they have to play 90 minutes against Atalanta, 90 or 120 against Lazio, 90 against Milan... Thankfully we have a week after Milan to recover but it's not hard to understand how difficult this accumulation of games is. Up front we have [Romelu] Lukaku, [Andrea] Belotti and [Sardar] Azmoun for two more games, [Paulo] Dybala, [Stephan] El Shaarawy. Those are our options up front.

“In midfield and defence we're struggling. The Africa Cup has made things hard for us and forces us to do lots of things. We have this never-ending injury of Smalling's. From a personal point of view, I'd almost say it's ruined my season, not this period, the whole season.

“The fact that  Renato basically hasn't been available for us is another difficult situation. Because if Lorenzo gets injured today, or Dybala tomorrow, ok we miss them but they always come back two or three weeks later.

“The truth is that from Smalling's situation through to the Africa Cup, it's a difficult situation for us. Atalanta have [Ademola] Lookman away for the Africa Cup but in that area they also have [Gianluca] Scamacca, [Charles] De Keteleare, [Mario] Pasalic, [Luis] Muriel, [Aleksei] Miranchuk. It's a different situation for us.

“But as I've said before, we're taking things one game at a time, pushing on with everything we have, with what we have physically. In this case, we're playing with our home crowd driving us on as they always do.

“We're going with everything. It's a difficult match for us, a difficult week, but at the same time it won't be easy for Atalanta, it won't be easy for Lazio and it won't be easy for Milan. Because we're not easy for anyone.”