Mourinho Doesn’t Hold Back After Cremonese Controversy

AS Roma have been on a decent run of form of late, picking up two wins and a draw in their last four matches, but following on from their Serie A defeat to Cremonese on Tuesday evening, they have now lost a little ground on their race for a top four spot in the Italian top flight.

Following on from the late 2-1 defeat courtesy of an 83rd minute penalty kick, manager Jose Mourinho’s side now sit in fifth place in the table, one point behind Lazio and three points between AC and Inter of Milan.

There is plenty of time left for Mourinho’s Roma to fully get back on track and the best sportsbooks would give odds on them doing just that, but there is no denying Tuesday evening turned into a bit of a nightmare for fans. Having fallen behind in the game early on, Leonardo Spinazzola finally restored parity with just under 20 minutes remaining on the clock, until the eventual penalty decided the points on the day to give Cremonese their first win of the 2022/23 league campaign which closed their gap to safety to eight full points.

That was not the only concern for 60 year old Mourinho, as he obviously saw himself again red carded from the dugout just two minutes into the second half – and you imagine his claims of being provoked by the fourth official will continue to fall on deaf ears.

Speaking to the media following on from the full time whistle, the gaffer explained.

“I’m emotional but not crazy. For the first time in my career a referee has spoken to me in an unjustifiable way. To have the reaction I had is because something happened. I need to know now if I can do something from a disciplinary point of view.”

Mourinho’s claim that the fourth official instructed referee Marco Piccinini to send him to the stands without providing a full and appropriate description of what had happened, and he has already been given a 10,000 Euro fine along with a two game touchline ban.

“Unfortunately, the fourth official doesn’t have the honesty to say what he said to me, how he said it and the way he treated me, which obviously triggered my reaction. I want to see if there’s an audio recording of what he said to me. I don’t want to get into the fact that he’s from Turin, that we have to play Juventus and he wants me off the touchline. I don’t want to get into that. I want to get into the fact that for the first time in my career, a referee, and in this case a fourth official, spoke to me in an unacceptable way.”

Mourinho went on to claim that the fourth official ‘appears to have forgotten’ what he had said when he visited the officials’ dressing room after the game, but plenty of Roma fans will pay attention to his not so subtle accusations.