Jose Mourinho pinned Roma’s 4-3 defeat to Juventus on Eldor Shomurodov as his side threw away a two-goal lead in a dramatic match.
Roma led 3-1 and were seemingly in complete control, in a match that new-signing Ainsley Maitland-Niles started at right-back.
Mourinho introduced Shomurodov with 20 minutes remaining as Juventus scored three goals in seven minutes, and the Roma boss felt the forward’s poor performance was pivotal to the loss as he also criticised his team’s mentality.
“I don’t want to criticise too much, but I could,” Mourinho said.
“Especially on some individuals. We had 70 minutes of absolute control, with the mentality and the desire to play.
“I subbed Felix [Afena-Gyan], who played a great game, and then the player who enters [Shomurodov] after only one minute is wrong. 3-2.
“If you have a strong mentality there is no problem but here there are some complexes because of which even last year they didn’t win the top matches. That goal killed us.”
The win move Juventus up to fifth in the Serie A table, ten points off leaders AC Milan.
Roma are eighth, a further six points back, having conceded seven goals in three days in matches against Milan and Juventus.
