Jose Mourinho insists Roma lost the Derby della Capitale to a ‘half-goal’ from Lazio, but admits they are ‘lacking quality that can make the difference in attack.’
The Derby della Capitale was decided by a Felipe Anderson strike, after Pedro harassed Roger Ibanez into an error inside his own penalty area.
Nicolò Zaniolo had the best opportunity to equalise, smashing it against the crossbar with the aid of a deflection, but once again the Giallorossi were largely toothless in attack.
Mou refused to take questions from the DAZN studio and only spoke to the interviewer in the stadium.
“It wasn’t easy to play against a team that sat so deep and controlled the tempo very well,” said the Special One.
“They defended well after taking the lead and we lacked sharpness as well as the quality that can make the difference in attack.
“It’s not just the goals that we are lacking, but also playing as a team and winning individual duels around the pitch. When you play in a very direct fashion, you need to win the individual duels, and we didn’t do that today.”
Paulo Dybala, Leonardo Spinazzola and Georginio Wijnaldum were already out, but Lorenzo Pellegrini went off in the second half with a muscular problem.
“When we are missing certain players, we struggle. Pellegrini always played in the Europa League and when we simply couldn’t do without him, so it’s natural that eventually he’s going to get an injury.”
Dybala was in the stands and is rushing his comeback from a thigh strain to be ready for Argentina and the World Cup in Qatar.
“Obviously, he wants to go to the World Cup, it’s difficult to say no to that. If his injury progresses well, we hope to have him back on Sunday against Torino.”
It was pointed out to Mourinho that Roma have lost a lot of head-to-head clashes on home turf this season, for example against Atalanta, Napoli and now Lazio.
“I think Roma lose those games undeservedly. Atalanta had one shot on goal and won 1-0, Napoli had more problems than they’ve ever had and won with a great goal from Victor Osimhen, while Lazio scored a half-goal.
“We lack sharpness, I will admit that, but the identity to fight for a great result is untouchable.”
With Mourinho constantly complaining that he cannot rotate the squad because it is too thin, will Roma make investments in January?
“I don’t think so. We need to get players back to fitness, for example I don’t know how Wijnaldum will be doing at the start of the year. We must make do with what we have, for example Cristian Volpato has played four games already.
“If we have to give more space to other youngsters, we will do that.”
I don’t agree with these players not playing for club and getting treatments so they can go to Qatar and play for country. This world cup is going to drain any players that go. Even healthy ones. It will surely have an impact on the Scudetto. FIFA should be held to account for this upcoming fiasco.
I think tammy Abraham and belotti should be sold they are not quality striker
Lack of scoring looks to be a huge problem. 16 goals so far is really modest. That is the key problem.
Only Smalling and Camara give their hearts out the others are a load of rubbish 🗑.