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Here’s what our boss had to say.
Can you give a fitness update on Manu Kone and Paulo Dybala?
“Kone had an MRI scan, which revealed that he’s suffered a first-degree injury, so it’s not particularly significant. However, he’ll still need to take the required time to recover, and we hope that he’s back in action ahead of the international break. As for Dybala, there’s nothing major of note. He’s suffering from fatigue of his calf muscle, and we hope that he can play next week.”
Given the absences in midfield, might Lorenzo Pellegrini be asked to play in a deeper role? How’s Santiago Castro doing?
“For sure, given that we’re facing an emergency. Pellegrini can certainly play there. In the meantime, we’ll try and get [Bryan] Cristante back into the fold. We hope he’s ready for the Napoli game, otherwise it’ll be the following fixture. Castro? In the last two games we went down to ten men against Como and the other night’s game unfolded as it did. He’s a good player, who’s already done well in Serie A. Tomorrow will definitely be a good opportunity for him.”
After such a defeat against Real Madrid, did you understand the true stature of this group?
“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about the Scudetto or other objectives, because otherwise it makes it harder. We’ve got a good team, as has been evident for months now, because we’ve not been getting good results by chance. In recent times we’ve had to play against Inter, Como and Real Madrid and in all these games we’ve shown what we’re made of, even when dealing with top opponents.
“Over the course of games certain situations might unfold or players might have to leave the pitch. It depends, because sometimes you have everyone available for some games, and or others you have to deal with absentees. In others unexpected things happen, such as [Donyell] Malen's sending off. Maybe you can foresee a defender being sent off, but not someone like Malen. This is part of football. That being said, we come out of the other side of these three games feeling strengthened, knowing that, unless there are unforeseen circumstances, we can stand up to these teams.”
How do you avoid the risk - if any – of long-term negative psychological effects after such a result? Is it just us thinking that there might be some?
“There is, because the other night we definitely suffered a psychological blow, probably when the score went 3-2. Indeed, it’s definitely the case. This is something you have to work on and that you have to sort out, especially this team mustn’t feel that they have to win the Champions League, the Scudetto or who knows what else. This is a team that has to play its football and that’s that. If you concede a goal in the way we did, you can’t let it bring you down too much. It’s because you can feel lost and think, “We could’ve won this game. Now we’re not winning anymore.
“In my opinion, what always counts are the performances. It's always about how you deal with these teams. We know that games are decided in the latter stages. We decided them in our favour in Parma and against Atalanta, while it was the opposite against Inter, Juventus and Real Madrid. It's not a matter of poor fitness but of resolve. In those moments we can make up for it with good organisation, which fell apart when Madrid made it 3-2, and also by reacting with resolve. We came up short in this regard the other night.
“Fortunately, we’re back in action right away, even though we have several absentees. We’re up against a team that isn’t of the same standard of the team we played the other night, but they’re well-organised and are great at keeping it tight, covering spaces and pressing. As such, they’ll pose a different kind of challenge.
“Regardless of who plays or not, we’ll need a solid team. We need players who feel confident when they’re called upon, as due to the fixture list we can’t always play with the same team, without making changes. Changes are necessary, because on Sunday in Como we played with ten men for almost half the game. It's not a problem if a player goes into the end of the game feeling fatigued, especially if they’ve had to deal with [Yan] Diomande, or if they’ve had to mark Vinicius [Junior] and then Endrick comes on. This is the norm when you face such teams.
“We need to expand our squad. The players who’ll play tomorrow, Castro, [Rodrigo] Mora or any other guys, need to have the same confidence and the same resolve, because you don’t just use 11 players for a competition, you call upon a whole squad. A team isn’t made up of just 11 players, nowadays not even just 15 or 16. In our case, we need to have at least 20 players capable of being in the team. That’s a bare minimum. It’s more and more the case when you play in a competition such as the Champions League. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing I can’t say. But you can see clearly you need to expand your squad, given the other teams competing in the competition because players can get injured or suspended. These injuries might set a player back for a month or a week, but in the meantime the team has to deal with three games. Tomorrow’s game will be our third in a week and Tuesday’s will be our fourth in ten days. Football has changed – you sink or swim.
“However, going back to how the team responded, I also want to focus on the positives and not just how we let in goals from corner kicks. Let's talk about that too, let's give everyone a boost. Let's champion these young players we have and who tomorrow will maybe have a say in us overcoming Genoa. It's clear that it won't be an easy game, far from it. Even if we had everyone available it would be a challenge. The only thing that worries me about tomorrow’s game is that we won’t have many options. This means we might even have to call on some Primavera players in some positions, who could make their debuts.”
Do Roma have a mental block when it comes to big matches? Why does history keep repeating itself?
“As I’ve stated before, I wouldn’t call it a mental block. We were up against an opponent who has players capable of coming on and making the difference, just as we do when we turn games around. The other evening the turning point was inspired by Endrick and his two headers. There were a couple of incidents, but they came about in the most unpredictable way, by that I mean causing us issues in the air from three corner kicks. People will draw their own conclusions. It's normal for certain teams to have these chances. [Federico] Gatti, for example, caused us problems as a striker. He came on and scored in the thick of it. He didn't just do it against us - I think it happened in some other games as well, although I don't remember which now. When you get to the end, many such teams win matches in this way. When there’s no longer the option or the ability to weave proper moves together you then look for other solutions. That being said, they all count, just the same as goals scored from open play. It’s a fact that many of these teams are able to solve problems and win games this way. We manage to do it in a certain way against certain teams, while maybe we suffer from it against others. We’ll take note of this and we’ll try to sort it out in the future.”
Is there anything you can work on?
“That's what we still have to do. However, in those situations, conceding three goals from corner kicks in a row like that... I’d already witnessed us missing three penalties last season [against Lille in the Europa League], from similar incidents, and I thought it was already an impressive record. The other night we outdid ourselves.”
Let’s go back to what you said about expanding your squad.
“I want to explain something, with the risk of someone telling me that I'm moaning. That's not the point. The issue is that nowadays teams who qualify for Europe, teams who play in the Champions League and deal with this type of fixture list, can no longer have a squad that’s the same size as a few years ago, as five or six years ago. We can always tap into the academy – don’t worry, we’ll never end up fielding just 10 players. However, for teams playing in Europe, with the fixture list as it is, you clearly need a bigger squad in order to deal with this many matches.”
You mark man-to-man across the pitch but use zonal marking for corner kicks. What convinces you about this strategy on set-pieces?
“Man-marking across the pitch? That’s become a label now. But during the game I’ve rarely seen Molina end up on Wesley’s side or Wesley on the other side. The players defend their own area and when the space is just a few metres, within your area you do mark your man, your opponent. He might move around, it might be one or the other, but you don’t follow him everywhere. It’s a defensive approach that’s always been effective, but what happened the other night had never happened before. It’s yielded results in attack too, because we scored goals and won matches last year through [Gianluca] Mancini, [Mario] Hermoso, [Evan] Ndicka and Cristante. What happened happened the other night so we’ll certainly taking note of it, but we analyse situations too. We certainly lacked organisation on the goal that made it 3–2. On the other two goals we let our focus slip a little.”
Do Roma need to manage their intensity throughout the 90 minutes?
“With the five subs, that’s a non-issue. I respect everyone’s views but while some might guide me, others do not at all. This is football today. As I said before, in some matches we turned things around and in others we were on the receiving end. Obviously in the last quarter of an hour, when matches are evenly balanced, substitutions and new situations can have a big impact. It's not a problem other than having to play so many matches. When you play so much, players can suffer a lapse and very good players come on. So you have to make use of these substitutions too. But that works both for and against you. Matches are supposed to last 90 minutes and the one the other night was a bit of an anomaly. If we’d conceded different goals, then we'd be talking about something else. Those three goals all came from set-pieces. Then of course everyone is free to think what they like.”
How are Matias Soule and Mora progressing?
“They're both improving for sure. Mora is very young and he's playing more and more. Soule is 23, so he's not the finished article yet but he's already got several seasons under his belt and he's a valuable player. So there’s no problem at all with these lads.”
How is Pellegrini doing fitness-wise? Is De Roon able to start four matches in ten days?
“De Roon has played far more than four matches in ten days. He’s got consistency and despite no longer being in his prime he hasn’t struggled. He’s fit so he hasn’t had that sort of problem. I can see that this new experience is also hugely motivating for him. The goal he scored the other night is reward for the choice he made, which wasn’t an easy one. He’s a very reliable player.
“Pellegrini is different because he had surgery and was out for months. He’s a player who’s getting back to full fitness. He needs to play to regain his strength and physical condition, because being out of action is different from being sidelined due to injury. He’s on the right track, though.”
Is there any update on Bryan Cristante's return?
“As I said earlier, we're hoping to have him available for Napoli. It won't be easy but we'll try and hope it works out. He's a warrior for sure, so in a difficult situation he'll try even harder. We're hopeful. In any case, we don't want to harm his recovery, which is going well. If he doesn't make it for Napoli, it'll be for the next game.”
Speaking of expanding the squad, were you unhappy with some of the subs the other night? What do you think caused the psychological collapse?
“It wasn't psychological. We had the chance to score with Pellegrini in the 77th minute. What I saw was different. I respect everyone's views but I think I saw something different. On the corners, yes, clearly we were hesitant. We didn't react because Real got to all of them, which hadn't happened up until then. We could talk about psychology for months, but I think it's simpler than that.
“Regarding the subs, Mora, you guys said he did well when he came on. Pellegrini did well. Who else came on? [Leonardo] Balerdi? [Niccolo] Pisilli came on after 20 minutes. So what are we talking about? Unfortunately Kone picked up an injury immediately, otherwise we might have had another substitution to use. These things have been happening lately. Balerdi and [Kostantinos] Koulierakis came on nine or ten minutes from the end and they were involved in the corners. Apart from that, I don't think there were any really dangerous situations or times when we found ourselves under pressure. Those situations came about and they scored from them. It's rather unusual but it's only right to analyse it. It detracts from the rest of the game but it's part of the result.”
Will you go with a narrower attack against Genoa? Might you push a defender up into midfield?
“Those are some of the things we need to consider, yes At the moment, unless we turn to some of the academy kids – which I will anyway – we have [Mile] Svilar out, and the outfield players missing are Malen, who's suspended, Kone, Dybala and Cristante. We have enough players in defence and out wide but we're short in midfield and attack. We don't have many alternatives but we have players who can play. All of the guys we're talking about have played before.
Tomorrow we'll need strength, conviction and energy from whoever plays. We're playing in the Serie A again, where we're having our say. Of course the season is 38 games long and there's time to catch up but one way or another we're going to have to pull out all the stops tomorrow. I'm sure we'll have the right spirit, mentality, strength and energy to play the match and try to win. Because if you win games like these, you grow in confidence, you get players back and it adds value. Because we do have the players but at the moment we need to add value to those who have to play.”
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