José Mourinho’s post-derby thoughts

Here's what he had to say...

Does this elimination hurt even more because of the condition your squad finds itself in?

“It always hurts. Even more so when it's a derby. We're constantly struggling with huge difficulties. In the last few weeks we've played Napoli, Juve, Atalanta and Lazio. We had a really good win against  Napoli, we deserved more against Atalanta and Juventus, and today we lost the game because of a modern-day penalty. I don't want to say it should or shouldn't have been given but it's a VAR penalty. A penalty the ref chose not to give from three yards away. Why should the VAR then give it afterwards?

“The players are used to it. 10 or 20 years ago players would never have thrown themselves the way they do nowadays. So we lost to a penalty.

“I thought we were the more determined side in the first half. We held our shape well. Then when you lose [Paulo] Dybala, that changes everything for us. It happened against Fiorentina in a match where it looked like we were going to win it easily and it changed today's game as well. Without Paulo we lack a connection and we have less quality on the ball.

“As for the goal we conceded, besides being very much a goal of the modern game, it was a ridiculous goal to concede. I'm not talking about the penalty, because it was caused by a top kid, a top footballer and a top person who deserves this opportunity to develop, a penalty by a kid with 55 minutes of Serie A experience to his name. I'm talking about the lead-up to it. We had a throw-in, right in front of me, and we can't possibly do what we did from a throw-in of ours, giving away a corner that then led to the penalty.

“In a match like this, you then find yourself in a privileged position, psychologically too. There was no football afterwards, no time to play. And usually with a top referee, an intelligent referee who commands all aspects of the game like [Daniele] Orsato, the team that scores first wins. The match ends there because afterwards he doesn't let you play.”

How is Dybala?

“It's his usual muscle problem. He played about 80 minutes of a very physical match two days ago. It's difficult for Paulo to recover in two days. He wanted to play this game and we needed everyone to give their all. We have people who are playing on the edge but keep going, people like [Gianluca] Mancini, who hasn't trained in a month but takes painkillers and anti-inflammatories so that he can play, then doesn't train till the next one.

“But he has a different kind of physique. When Paulo's problem flares up, it changes everything for him. Paulo went off and [Lorenzo] Pellegrini came on. He's not having the best of times at the moment and he took quite a heavy blow to  his back.

“These are the difficulties we have. I'm a little disappointed with some of the players individually because we should do better.”

Does that include Romelu Lukaku?

“No, Lukaku could have scored a sensational goal. We work really hard to get the ball out wide. We do really well but then we don't put crosses in. You can go low or high, to the far post or hit the first defender. But we don't cross the ball. We really struggle to work the ball into those areas where it's difficult to get to. We manage to get there but then we're unable to finish the move.

“On an individual level, I may not be completely satisfied with some of the players but as a team the lads are giving everything they have in what is a really rough time for us.

“Now the cup is over. We've lost a derby match and we all feel the weight of that, especially when you think of the amazing fans Roma have. But we have to push on. We'll finish this horrible run of games in Milan on Sunday and then for the first time in ages we'll have a full week – not for work but for recovery. We're waiting for people to come back so that we can give our all in the two competitions we're still in.”

[Massimo Mauro speaking] I'd like to make an observation. The yardstick used for fouls in midfield is totally different to the one the VAR used to make Orsato give a penalty. You can't have that in a football  match. In midfield there's ball and foot and the referee quite rightly waves play on, but then in the area a foul that wouldn't knock a bird over leads to a penalty. You can't lose a match for something like that.

“I don't know if you have the same expression in Italy a we have in Portugal but in Portugal we say that when you give a foul in the box it's the maximum punishment – almost like capital punishment, the guillotine during the French Revolution. The maximum penalty is a violent decision in a football context.

[Speaking to Mauro] “It's true. This very intelligent referee usually lets play continue for challenges like that in midfield and he decided not to give a penalty. But then when someone sitting on VAR decides to call him back, and there's that minimum contact, and when a player makes a scene after that contact, the referee goes over to the monitor and that's it. I don't even want to say it wasn't a penalty...”

[Mauro speaking again] The players are smart, crafty, so they try to exploit it to the full.

“They adapt to the situation.”