Eusebio Di Francesco was so furious with Roma that he injured his arm punching the bench in a 3-3 draw with Atalanta. “It was amateur hour.”
The Giallorossi had taken the lead after 90 seconds with a sensational Javier Pastore back-heel flick, crumbled to go 3-1 down and then fought their way back for 3-3.
Considering Atalanta rested numerous star players, including captain Papu Gomez, Roma had been expected to control this match.
Eusebio Di Francesco was so furious with Roma that he injured his arm punching the bench in a 3-3 draw with Atalanta. “It was amateur hour.”
The Giallorossi had taken the lead after 90 seconds with a sensational Javier Pastore back-heel flick, crumbled to go 3-1 down and then fought their way back for 3-3.
Considering Atalanta rested numerous star players, including captain Papu Gomez, Roma had been expected to control this match.
“We have to give credit to Atalanta, who are in stunning physical form compared to us and indeed many other teams. In the first half they had more fuel in the tank, whereas we got all the distances wrong and were sluggish.
“I would’ve changed seven or eight players at half-time if I could, but we got it back on track. I got angry again in the last 10 minutes, because we got stretched out and stopped playing as a team again, allowing Atalanta far too many chances to win it.”
Alessandro Florenzi burst through the middle to reignite their hopes before Kostas Manolas tapped in a Pastore free kick to equalise.
“We worked on that kind of move in training, but we didn’t do it enough. In the first half, we passed about 50 back to our goalkeeper for no reason whatsoever. We knew it was a good way of moving the Atalanta centre-backs out of position and I wanted to see more of that.
“We were too bad in the first half to be real. We were slow in our thought process as well as our legs.”
Di Francesco punched the Plexiglas wall on the bench several times and attended post-match comments with his wrist bandaged.
“I go crazy because at times I’d like a little more focus. I wanted balance in the last 10 minutes, yet we looked like amateur hour out there with 11 attacking against 11 defending. It’s no way to play.”