Daniel de Rossi spoke to Sky Sports at the end of Naples-Rome: Below are his statements.
It was a painful match, but you held on with courage. What do you think about it?
“Yes, the result shouldn’t be thrown away but we didn’t want this. They are very strong, we could have had a little less clarity, but we had to be cleaner in possession. They always gave the feeling of being dangerous, we we lost the ball too often. They shot a lot and played a good game. We need to regain our strength because now we have a very difficult game.”
You only went out a few times, Paredes was missing. Has physical and nervous tiredness set in?
“I don’t know. This squad doesn’t have many setters, without Leo it shows. But we can’t play only when he’s there. We have to do better than this. We’ve played many matches, but we still have many difficult ones left. If we think about being tired now we will make a bad impression.”
In the pre-match we had touched on the topic of Ndicka. Do you need someone like him?
“A 150 million striker was marking the whole match. We need everyone: I’m happy for Tammy’s goal because he comes back from a tough period and we have recovered two boys who have suffered from injuries that have made them suffer. We hope to recover Smalling and Lukaku for Thursday. We think they will be able to be there, let’s see.”
Mancini seemed dull, was that predictable? When you have to make choices, how important are the technical and character aspects?
“In the end we kept the ball like Napoli, I think; it all depends on what we do with the ball. Possession interests me little, sometimes it can be used to defuse the qualities of the opponents. Mancio played a match like the others, We weren’t our best version but he didn’t influence the collective performance. It’s never easy to play every 3 days, he always plays even in less than perfect conditions.”
What signals did you get from Renato Sanches?
“He came in because he has technical and dribbling qualities. He was unlucky on the penalty, but in my opinion he came in well and can give us a hand. My choices penalize him, he has never played 90 minutes but he is very important. In the last month yes he’s training with intensity.”
De Rossi at Dazn
The commentary on the match?
“A point worth 1 in the standings and not too much from a morale point of view. We didn’t do badly against Bologna, but things went the wrong way. Today, however, we played a subpar match against a team that is very strong, but really very strong. We had to put in a super performance to win and we weren’t able to do it against a team like that. They brought out the pride of the champions, now former champions, but with the players they have they are very difficult to face.”
Today you created less with your attackers. What do you think about it?
“I’m happy with the attackers I have. It wasn’t an easy match. When you play against such strong teams the first thought is to take the ball away from them, take away the possibility of getting close to our area. In my opinion we didn’t hold it well, we could have done something more, something better. The performance could have been more positive.”
Have you also been affected by your many commitments?
“We didn’t cover the ball very well, we allowed a little too much depth in the second half, but in front of us there was Osimhen who is a good player at taking it. Even when we don’t play exceptional games, however, we can see the desire to do well, to stay there. Now there are still many games, it’s tough, we know it, we tell ourselves, but we don’t tell ourselves too much.”
How do you beat Bayer?
“Honestly, Milan were also very strong, I was also afraid of Brighton and Feyenoord. We met teams that wanted to play football, a bit similar to each other, and it’s difficult to face those who want to do it. With Bayer Leverkusen we will have to be careful in the phase defensive. They have good players, who dribble well, who have many offensive weapons. But if you take the ball away from them they get annoyed. They also have the heart to equalize 20 at the end. They are unbeaten, but there are no unbeatable players.”
