De Rossi interviewed after Empoli defeat

What was missing this evening?

"First of all, I’d like to watch the match back, but I'll tell you here and now that there was a lack of energy and a lack of intensity, especially in the first half. We were slow at circulating the ball, we were always passing backwards and we didn't get forward much. When we played direct football – as I’d intended us to approach this game - we were quite dangerous or close to being a threat. Artem [Dovbyk] created problems for the opposition with such an approach.

“Regarding facing teams that know how to shut up shop, if you’re sluggish when dribbling, fail to take preventative measures and are careless when you lose the ball such teams will start to hit you on the counter, your belief will drop, spaces will open up and you’ll concede goals. In the first half they deserved to take the lead. Then there’s the matter that luck wasn’t on our side."

What needs to be done for Roma to rediscover last season’s identity?

“You have to move fast. Nowadays in football you have to move fast, and I have to get it right when it comes to choosing those who move fast.

Maybe Roma should’ve focused on wing play more, especially given that you’ve got a centre-forward like Dovbyk, who seems to struggle more with balls into feet and was starved of service from the flanks.

“Yes, absolutely. Their wing-backs caused us issues. After 20 minutes I’d already called for things to be changed but they kept breaking forward and then would regroup in formation. I agree that Artem needs balls over the top, into space and to his head. He needs reinforcements in the centre of the pitch, because if he’s the only one occupying this area it becomes impossible for him to find the right spaces. This includes during build-up play, especially when he has his back to the goal in the final third. We’ve seen a lot of footage of him when he played for Girona, where he held the ball up and laid it off for team-mates to take shots from the edge of the area. I think he did that a couple of times today.

“He needs better service, we need to train better and we need to do many things that can lead to improved performances. However, I’ll say it again, in the second half we didn't use any tactics in particular - we were desperate and when we went 2-0 down we started to go off the rails. That's how you win games, or draw, or bounce back."

(Giancarlo Marocchi, former midfielder who now works for DAZN) As a midfielder, I tried to stand up for your players. When there are many attacking midfielders coming at you, that's the start of the danger: by that I mean the opposition try to rob you of possession, your team moves up the pitch, your defenders move out and that's when the danger begins. I saw this happen many times.

“We were getting bogged down in possession. I’d asked the team to avoid this, and I tried to reiterate this during the half-time break. However, that’s maybe the reason why we were losing the ball and why we were unable to break through in attack. The reason why we got caught on the counterattack was because we weren’t careful with our covering. We worked a lot on it but clearly we need to work on it even more.

“But it's not a matter of what our midfielders or attackers did, even if our defenders put in an incredible performance. They were a bit weak at covering in the first half, but then they held firm in the second half. They performed very well.”

Is it difficult to fit Dovbyk, Paulo Dybala, Mattias Soulé and Lorenzo Pellegrini in the same team? Were Roma being hit on the counter because you struggled to find balance, or is it just a down to fitness?

"Dovbyk, Dybala and Pellegrini can't help us avoid counterattacks - the players behind them have to be more aggressive, commit fouls and try to avoid play being stretched. If we don’t work on this it’ll happen in many games. Last season teams were shooting at our goal too soon after we’d lost the ball – we’d worked hard on improving in this regard but today we took a backward step.”