Roma manager Jose Mourinho has spoken about the club’s issues upfront, stating that they don’t have Erling Haaland and have to make do with what they have.
The Giallorossi lost 1-0 to Feyenoord in the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League and they had missed a first-half penalty. but the performances of Tammy Abraham and Andrea Belotti were not great on the night, having endured rather inconsistent campaigns themselves. Paulo Dybala was also taken off in the first half due to injury.
After the game, Roma boss Mourinho spoke to Sky (via TMW) about the club’s issues upfront and the game in general. On their problems with goalscoring, the Portuguese stated:
“We don’t have Haaland, we are who we are, we always do our best. The guys played a game of effort, dignity, sacrifice. They had opportunities for a different result, but this is the reality. We have a tough match on Sunday, then Thursday
“We don’t have many players for these rotations. We’ll probably lose Dybala and Abraham for these two games, but we’re never wrong at the Olimpico.”
He further spoke about the centre-forward issues and stated: “The team doesn’t score the goals it should, in accordance with what it does on the pitch. Also last Sunday in Turin, we had the opportunity to make it 2-0 and close the match, we didn’t. We are not a team that scores many goals. In Salzburg, we had 3-4 goals and we don’t score them. We have these difficulties, there are few goals for offensive players.”
Mourinho also spoke about whether he is optimistic about the second leg and their progression to the semi-finals. He stated that he is optimistic but he is cautious about the next Serie A game.Â
“Yes, but worried about Sunday. You lose important players, everyone is in our team, but there are fewer options. We always do our best, obviously it’s a result that we don’t feel deserved, but deserved isn’t part of my vocabulary. Unfortunately we’re playing against Udinese on Sunday and we have to focus there.”
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Kaustubh Pandey | GIFN
