Jose Mourinho saw red on Sunday in Rome (Picture: Getty Images)
Jose Mourinho took aim at some of his Roma players and admitted he deserved to be shown a red card after a dramatic late draw with Torino on Sunday.
An injury time Nemanja Matic goal snatched a point for Roma, after Andrea Belotti had missed a penalty just minutes before and Mourinho was sent off for remonstrating with officials.
The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager accepted that he deserved to be given his marching orders, telling DAZN, via Football Italia: ‘It was the right decision, my words to the referee deserved a red card.
‘I spoke to him after the game and apologised, but I don’t want to talk about his performance. I was humble enough to apologise, but I will leave his performance and the hypothetical influence on the match to you.
‘I don’t want to talk about what we said, that was private. My words deserved a red card, but I will not judge the referee’s performance.’
Mourinho did not really leave quietly after being shown red (Picture: Getty Images)
Mourinho then criticised some of his players, but not all of them, saying the returning Paulo Dybala made a huge difference after coming on 70 minutes in, performing at a much higher level to a lot of his teammates.
‘There are two games tonight, one until the 70th minute and one after. Until the 70th, Roma fans wanted to just go home, but in the final 20 minutes we created more, perhaps more than we have done in the last four or five games. Why? Easy, because Dybala came on.
‘When you have a player like Paulo and he doesn’t play, it’s different. How many extra points would we have now if Dybala hadn’t been injured? There are teams who have marvellous players all the way through the squad, we have what we have.
‘I don’t want to hide, there are players here who right now are performing at a very low level. The break is coming up, it will be the right moment for certain players to look at themselves and try a little self-criticism.
‘Despite all these problems, we are a united group. A team that misses a penalty at the 92nd minute is usually dead, but not us, we kept going.’
Mourinho also pointed the finger at another of his players, although we do not know who, as he said someone dodged their responsibility to take the 92nd minute penalty, which Belotti went on to miss.
‘Belotti was not the designated penalty taker. I won’t tell you who was,’ said Mourinho.
‘This is the type of situation that can happen. The problem is when people don’t give what they can, I don’t like psychological frailty. Belotti showed courage to take it and make that mistake. You cannot say he lacked courage.’
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‘There are players here who right now are performing at a very low level.’
