Mancini: We know we need to improve

The game in Amsterdam gets underway at 21:00 CEST.

Here's what the defender had to say, during what was a brief press conference at the Johan Cruyff Arena...

You’ve played a lot of games this season – how are you feeling? And, secondly, we’ve read a lot recently about the atmosphere inside Trigoria – we are not there but you are, what can you tell us?

“It’s true, we have played a lot of games, almost one every three days – and with the national team too. Playing so many games you need to find a way to recover quickly. But I feel good, I’m only 25 and I’m doing the best job in the world.

“I also read the stories in the newspapers about the mood within the squad; it seems to happen that sometimes things are said or written to try and cause problems at Roma. I can only say that the boss makes us train hard during the week – but when you are playing every three days you really train by playing the games.”

Despite the quality of the players, the Roma defence is the 10th best in Serie A. Can you explain that?

“There is no point hiding from it, we can clearly do a lot better. First and foremost as players we need to improve and make fewer errors defensively. We work with the coach at Trigoria to improve things defensively.

"We have the tenth best defence and that grates on us. We know that, we know that we need to improve and we want that to start tomorrow – because it’s a really important game.”