De Rossi’s comments post Juventus

Read what the boss had to say below...

An intense and physical match at times. Roma put on a great defensive performance but were lacking up front. What’s missing?

“It was important for us to have a solid match. The lads stayed compact, which we tried to do against Cagliari and which we managed to achieve and then lose in the first half against Empoli. There’s a lot of pressure on us at the moment so it was important to give a good performance. It was also important to come away with a point as we can put in some hard work over these two weeks. We won’t have many players, but we’ll be more level-headed.

“Now that the transfer window has closed, we know who we’ll be this season. What we saw tonight was a good starting point. It wasn’t an amazing match. We could’ve done a lot better on the ball, but we were up against a tough opponent. They brought on some incredible players in the second half. My lads did really well.”

How can the communication between Artem Dovbyk and the team be improved? They were struggling to find him.

“No, they weren’t struggling to find him. Everyone is afraid of Dovbyk. They know who he is. Thiago Motta, who is an excellent coach, had Bremer and [Federico] Gatti marking him the entire match, and that allowed us to have a bit more space on the wing. However, our wing-backs weren’t as dangerous as we would’ve liked them to be if they’d left us one-on-one, as we’ve seen a few times in our other games this season.

“Motta was well-prepared. He put two strong and physical defenders on [Dovbyk]. It’s not a question of communication or a poor performance. He gave it his best and fought alongside the team. I’m sure the goals will come soon.”

You said that Roma will soon be challenging for the Scudetto. Do you believe that?

“It depends what you mean by ‘soon’. I didn’t mean this season. It was more about the transfer market. Some very good players have joined the club, and you can’t bring in 15 a year.

“Continuing with these positive transfer windows, bringing in players that are hungry, fit, and talented means that there’s not as big a gap between Roma and the top teams. There are currently some teams that are much better than us. So, yes, I believe it.”

How long will it be before we see some character? Who do you expect to convey that to the others?

“You’ve picked up an important nuance there. Against Empoli, a game that was described negatively, we had a great first eight or nine minutes in their half. Then they hit us on the counter and put together a dangerous corner routine. We almost conceded, got scared and then it became a horrible, long, slow first half. The same happened today. We started well but then we maybe got a bit scared of our opponent.

“We’ve got to work on our concepts. If there’s a space between two players, we have to run into it, whether they take ten shots at goal or none. We need to put our footballing ideas before our fear.

“We can’t get scared because football is always like this, our opponents are always like this. In these moments, when we’re shying away and getting scared, we also need to look at how [Eldor] Shomurodov was pressing their keeper in the 94^th minute. We went into their box to press. That shows great spirit. We need to hold steady when we’re struggling because our fear will make us struggle even more.”