Jose Mourinho again turns on his own players after Roma’s last-gasp draw with Torino, reveals Andrea Belotti was not meant to take the penalty and they ‘are different with Paulo Dybala.’
The Giallorossi again had a poor overall performance and just scraped a 1-1 draw deep into stoppages with Nemanja Matic after Dybala’s curler bounced off the bar.
Before that, Karol Linetty was allowed a free header and Dybala earned a penalty, which Belotti blasted onto the upright.
Mourinho also saw red from the touchline in the closing stages, having vehemently protested several challenges that were not called as fouls.
“It was the right decision, my words to the referee deserved a red card,” Mourinho told DAZN.
“I spoke to him after the game and apologised, but I don’t want to talk about his performance. I was humble enough to apologise, but I will leave his performance and the hypothetical influence on the match to you. I don’t want to talk about what we said, that was private. My words deserved a red card, but I will not judge the referee’s performance.”
Mourinho had already hit the headlines after the 1-1 draw with Sassuolo by freezing Rick Karsdorp out of the squad, claiming he had ‘betrayed his teammates’ with an ‘unprofessional attitude’ coming off the bench.
“There are two games tonight, one until the 70th minute and one after. Until the 70th, Roma fans wanted to just go home, but in the final 20 minutes we created more, perhaps more than we have done in the last four or five games. Why? Easy, because Dybala came on.
“When you have a player like Paulo and he doesn’t play, it’s different. How many extra points would we have now if Dybala hadn’t been injured? There are teams who have marvellous players all the way through the squad, we have what we have.
“I don’t want to hide, there are players here who right now are performing at a very low level. The break is coming up, it will be the right moment for certain players to look at themselves and try a little self-criticism.
“Despite all these problems, we are a united group. A team that misses a penalty at the 92nd minute is usually dead, but not us, we kept going. I called these final 20 minutes the ‘minutes of hope’ that one day we can play Pellegrini and Dybala together.”
The penalty incident caused confusion, because Belotti stepped up to take it against his former teammate Vanja Milinkovic-Savic and fired it onto the upright.
“Belotti was not the designated penalty taker. I won’t tell you who was,” added Mourinho.
“This is the type of situation that can happen. The problem is when people don’t give what they can, I don’t like psychological frailty. Belotti showed courage to take it and make that mistake. You cannot say he lacked courage.”
Mourinho also spoke at a press conference afterwards and said he would tell a reporter “outside if you promise not to reveal it to another soul” what has gone wrong at Roma.
“Why do you need an external force of motivation if you are a player who became a professional out of millions and millions of kids who wanted to live this life? You are privileged. You are a man, not a child. Why do you need a coach to motivate you? The coach can add that extra, that plus, but need basic motivation to do your job? No.”
Obviously the PK taker is either Pellegrini or Dybala.
Probably Karsdorp as 3rd choice but since Mou chased him away he was left with Gallo Belotti.
It wasn’t in the team’s best interest that Dybala let anybody else take the penalty when the team was behind.