Roma manager José Mourinho spoke at his pre-match press conference today as he prepared to oversee his first league match for the Giallorossi.
The Portuguese technician opened his tenure with a victory on Thursday over Trabzonspor in the Europa Conference League, but attention now shifts to Serie A.
Roma face Fiorentina tomorrow evening at the Stadio Olimpico. It will be the first time that the stadium will allow supporters to attend matches for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak, which Mourinho believes could give his team a boost.
“The supporters can play a part tomorrow,” he said.
“I hope they’re there to play a part because they can really do it. Passion is an easy thing to comprehend, when I faced Roma as an opponent, I quickly understood how passionate these supporters are.”
Before diving into the clash versus La Viola, Mourinho discussed the transfer market and clarified on some of the comments he made on Thursday.
“I said on Thursday that we’re still missing something. Today, though, what I’m missing are three points from tomorrow’s match,” explained Mourinho.
“I tried to explain as best as I could, but perhaps I didn’t say enough. Our transfer market has been a bit reactionary due to having lost two players that we didn’t foresee losing.”
“Now, we didn’t acquire some players that I thought would be needed after I completed my analysis of how to balance the roster. However, I have no right to put any pressure on the club after the effort the club has made this summer.”
“I don’t have any additional requests. ‘Time’ is the keyword in our project. I realise it’s going to be difficult to do much more this summer, so I’ll embrace the time that this project has and work in peace with the players we have in the roster.”
“There’s plenty of time for us to do more, if it can’t be done now, perhaps it can be done in January or next summer. But I’d like for this to be the last time we discuss this.”
As for tomorrow’s opponent, Mourinho warned about the quality Fiorentina possesses while also praising their new manager, Vincenzo Italiano.
“They chose very well after Gattuso left the club. Italiano is a quality coach and his team has quality players. We’re aware of the challenge that they pose.”
Finally, the 58 year-old discussed some of the players in his team and their individual situations, including new acquisition Tammy Abraham.
“Tammy will be called-up tomorrow. He’s trained individually but he was already in good shape because of how much he trained with Chelsea. Physically, he’s absolutely ready,” revealed Mourinho.
“It was a tough week for him having to fly back to London and return here. But we’re delighted with him and all of our attackers.”
He added, “Reynolds? He’s a guy that I’ve known for a month. From a physical point of view he’s in incredible condition.”
“He must improve technically and tactically because he arrived from a much different reality than the football in Italy. But this is normal, he’s young and never played in Europe before.”
Before concluding, the Portuguese added one last note about his team’s mentality and approach to the season.
“My discourse is never going to change. We will go into each game with the same objective: to win. Now, we may lose, we may draw, but we want to win.”
“This approach won’t change even when we face the clubs that finished higher than us.”
As he departed the Fulvio Bernardini press room, Mourinho had one last thing to say to the present media members.
“I missed Italian press conferences. In England, they don’t want to talk about football, only problems.”
