APPIANO GENTILE - Roberto Mancini held a press conference at the Centro Sportivo Angelo Moratti on Friday morning to discuss the following day's trip to the capital to face Luciano Spalletti's Roma: "The players know it's a big match. I don't know whether it will be decisive because there are still lots of points to play for and a number of the top sides have to meet each other. It will, however, definitely be important to win the match because with three points we could cut the gap.
"Roma are a good side and, like Juventus and Napoli, they started the season looking to win the title. They have a lot of quality, they've been playing together for a long while and strengthened well in January with El Shaarawy and Perotti. Anything could happen over 90 minutes. Would a draw be a good result? When two sides go out there, they do so to give 100%. We'll see what the result is come full time but, just like Roma, we'll play to win. They've always been great matches when we play Roma and were some important milestones in the past because we developed and won a lot of trophies. Tomorrow sees a meeting between two in-form sides, I hope it's a good game and the result is the same as when we used to meet them."
There followed some questions on individual players: "We'll make a decision on Icardi after training, we'll assess his fitness together. As for a lack of numbers in midfield, Kondogbia is doing quite well, he will travel to Rome and we'll decide tomorrow whether to start him. Brozovic should be fit. Eder has played well ever since he joined the club. He moves well about the pitch, the only disappointing thing is he's yet to score but he works very hard for the team. I can't fathom the criticism, he's always scored goals and he'll start finding the net again soon, perhaps even tomorrow.
"Everyone struggles when they first move to Italy. Perisic can still get better, he's young and he can perform very well. He's doing what we've asked of him and what we thought he was capable of. A lot's already been said about Adem. As a former Roma player, Ljajic obviously wants to put in a great performance and I hope that's the case. Biabiany could be important, even off the bench."
The coach was also asked for his take on his side's progress: "The only regret is that we followed up our great start by dropping lots of points in January and February. But if we win tomorrow we'll be where we envisaged at the start of the season. We knew there were sides better equipped than us. You could say we've figured things out if you only look at our results. Often we've performed as we have in recent matches but haven't won."
Finally, a word on the Italian sides' progress in Europe: "That's how things are going at the moment. We dominated for years, whereas now we're going through a slightly tricky time. It will take a few years to regain our fourth Champions League place. I've got no idea what could happen with regards to a Super League, it's hard to comment on that at this moment in time."
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