ROME (ITALPRESS) – “Now our championship begins, the month of December will tell us who we are and where we want to go. There are no easy games, Lecce is a team used to never giving up. It has good players, who know how to fight, and a new coach has arrived who wants them to play soccer. We will have to be smart and determined, because every ball will be important.” This was said in a press conference by Roma coach Claudio Ranieri ahead of the home match against Lecce. “Possibility of a return to the four-man defense? It could be,” the Giallorossi coach added, “But I certainly don’t say that, I don’t want to give an extra chance to the opponent. I always reserve the night before to decide and hope it is the best solution for the team. The intensity? From what we saw on the pitch in London and against Atalanta, that’s what I want and what we have to play with.” And to those who ask him if Roma’s goal is salvation, he said, “The standings are the current state of all the teams, we are there and right now we are fighting to get out of the low standings. We have players who are used to being on another side of the standings, but I am used to being both here and there. I am convinced that my players will respond blow by blow, big time. But I want to touch to believe.” Against the Salentini, Dovbyk might be missing: “He is not well, he is sick, I don’t know if I will have him with Lecce. I don’t know if he will train tomorrow morning and how he will be. Hummels and Hermoso, on the other hand, have trained and are fine. Cristante has an ankle that is draining, we will see tomorrow if he will be able to train.” Ranieri, who sends a big armband to Edoardo Bove (“Hang in there, we’re all with you”), concluded by returning to the protests against referees made by the ds Ghisolfi: “I think if we do an interview with all the teams, all of them will complain. The most difficult thing in Italian soccer is being a referee: you have to know how to respect them, that’s the most important thing. It is right that a team sometimes says ‘it seems to us that,’ but we have to do it with respect. When I played, they made even more mistakes, they didn’t run like they do now and they weren’t as prepared as they are now. And on top of that there is the Var… They also make mistakes, but if we analyze the mistakes of the past and those of today, we have to thank the current level of referees. We can complain, but we have to respect them.”- Photo Ipa Agency -(ITALPRESS).
