On the eve of the match at the Olimpico: “Be careful of the Friulians’ counterattacks, ball possession will be important. I haven’t talked about a renewal with the Friedkins”
Tomorrow’s match scheduled at the Olimpico against Udinese, the relationship with Dan and Ryan Friedkin, but above all a clarification – anything but encouraging – on Chris Smalling’s condition. These are the topics on which José Mourinho focused during the press conference on the eve of the match against the Friulians, starting with the state of health of the former Manchester United player who is struggling with a tendinopathy which has prevented him from playing an official match for almost three years. months (the last time it happened on September 1st): “In Smalling’s case, the injury exists. Even among normal people there are those who can tolerate pain better. Smalling is not a boy who knows how to play in pain, he pulls back a little. His injury is difficult. It’s a great frustration for me because it’s in the position where we need it most. We have to be patient and I can’t beat myself up and I don’t have to do it with him. Let’s see when he comes back. In the last week he hasn’t spent even a minute outside the infirmary. He doesn’t even know if it’s cold outside because he hasn’t been there in a while. However, it is the first week in which there is no more pain. Next time we hope that he can go on the pitch but not with me, with the trainers. He is late. I don’t expect Smalling in the next 2 or 3 weeks. I don’t know if he comes back before 2024, let’s hope.”
absences
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The Special One is keen to take stock of a small group of players who have found themselves struggling with various physical problems since the beginning of the season which have kept them in the box longer than necessary: “Have the injured players missed a total of 52 games? This is a number that concentrates on 2/3/4 players maximum. There are others who haven’t missed a single game. These are the players with a clean medical history with occasional injuries such as Cristante, Mancini, Rui Patricio, Bove. This type of player is not in the group of 52 which basically includes Smalling, Renato, Pellegrini, occasionally Dybala and Spinazzola. It’s that group there and we know it. The players are professionals and do everything to feel good. We coaches and staff work a lot together. Sometimes people think that training is 2 and a half hours but we work on many variables and we think we are doing a great job.”
friedkin
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Also inevitable is a question about the possible contract renewal – the current one expires in June 2024 – and about the relationship with the club’s owners: “With the team you work every minute, and like with the family if you don’t have empathy with them you are in difficulty. They are the ones closest to me. This is what I call functional empathy: creating empathy by working. With property it’s different because I’m here and the property is there. I am paid to not create problems for the property, they must trust my work. The other day they asked me the question when I had last spoken to them. If you ask me today, the last time I spoke to them was yesterday, but we didn’t talk about the contract.” However, Mou prefers to overlook the lack of “protection” from Roma that he had alluded to in recent days: “I have many qualities and many defects. I don’t know if this is a quality or a flaw, but usually the people close to me know everything I think. I don’t spare my words. I don’t spare criticism or compliments. At work I’m an open book, everyone knows what I think when I’m happy or not.”
Udine
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The coach then goes on to analyze the qualities of Udinese, who will take the field against his Roma tomorrow at 6pm: “We have to be careful about their counterattacks because they have very fast people. If we lose the ball in a dangerous area we are more open. Our team has improved at this. We have more of the ball than before. Lorenzo Pellegrini is always an important player for us but I look at Udinese with these difficulties you spoke about. Their start to the championship is a surprise because they have potential. If we play low and give them the ball, they hurt us. They are strong on the dead ball and have people who shoot like Samardzic and Walace.” Mourinho continues: “They lost important players. They have people with experience in football, it is not a problem for them to sell players like Beto and Becao. They took Kabasele who has experience in the Premier League and finds attacking full-backs who have legs. They are very intelligent, they are people with a lot of experience in managing a football club. Udinese is always Udinese even if they like to make money in the summer.”
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