Roma captain Lorenzo Pellegrini had some unusually strong words for the decisions the club made leading up to tonight’s 5-1 defeat to Fiorentina.
In his post-match press conference, Pellegrini complained about the decision to sack Daniele De Rossi earlier in the season and defended coach Ivan Juric from the criticism following recent results.
“The atmosphere in the locker room is not easy. What I told the team, and that includes me, is that certain performances are unacceptable for us and today is one of those.”
“On the other hand, we need to think about moving forward and I don’t know a different path than working and doing it more than before. But now it is important to look each other in the eye and be men before being footballers, tonight is unacceptable for everyone.”
“Since coach Juric arrived, there has never been a single moment in which the team has not given him everything. Like all things, it takes time to see certain results.”
“Excluding tonight: what happened is not acceptable and you know that I always suffer twice, once as a Roma fan and once as a professional. Like a double stab. I want to watch the game again but the feeling from the pitch is that there was nothing positive to take from it.”
“Now there is no need to make a drama out of it, but the difficulty is real and objective and it must be resolved for the good of Roma.”
“I’m not looking for excuses of any kind, today’s match goes beyond any alibi. From everyone. A performance like that is not good. There is an objective problem and it must be solved. If I were Roma’s main problem, I would raise my hand and walk away. Roma is in a difficult moment and we need to tell each other how things are.”
“When I talk about organizational issues it’s because a team starts with one coach and after four games you find yourself with another, it’s certainly not a benefit. Every coach is different, De Rossi and Juric have very different philosophies. Obviously we all have to improve, me first.”
“When I say tonight was unacceptable, I mean everything about it was unacceptable. How we entered the field, the difficulties w e encountered and not knowing how to fix them. I’m talking about everyone, no one excluded. And it takes courage to say that we all sucked. I won’t hide behind any excuses. We must admit we all sucked.”
