Jose Mourinho praises Roma performance in victory over Atalanta: ‘This is a really big step forward mentally’

Jose Mourinho’s Roma stunned Atalanta on Saturday with a 4-1 win at Gewiss Stadium for the Giallorossi’s first win over a top five opponent in nearly two years, which, at least temporarily, brought them back into Serie A’s top five.

Tammy Abraham scored twice as Chris Smalling and Nicolo Zaniolo also tallied to end La Dea’s five-match winning streak in the Italian topflight despite Bryan Cristante’s own goal which threatened to bring Gian Piero Gasperini’s men back into it.

Duvan Zapata had an equalizer ruled out due to Jose Luis Palomino’s offside and that was all Jose Mourinho’s visitors needed to motivate them to kill off Atalanta with Smalling and Abraham’s second goals following the canceled leveler.

“We certainly made mistakes and conceded a messy early goal like against Milan and Villarreal which made it difficult,” Gasperini raged about the VAR call after the final whistle. “However, as in those cases, the team recovered and was playing one-way football. That incident changed the game and I demand an explanation. If Palomino did not touch the ball, why is it offside?

“If Cristante got the ball, what difference does it make? Are we joking, here? If Palomino does not touch the ball, then it is not interfering with play — he is behind Cristante. It would have been 2-2 with 20 minutes left and that is a very different game with our momentum.

“Do not get me wrong, Roma might have still won, but that was a transformative moment of the match. If Palomino did not touch the ball, then it is madness to disallow that. Madness. The referee told us Palomino touched it and he was offside. If that is untrue, what just happened? This sort of thing takes credibility away from the sport.”

As Gasperini fumed, Mourinho was delighted with Roma’s impressive result and a performance which had been coming for some time and enabled the Portuguese to silence criticism of his team being unable to beat a top five side for the past 19 months.

“Our spirit was fantastic, and the players clearly knew that controlling the game for 90 minutes against a team like would require deep defending at times,” said Mourinho post-match. “We were excellent in every way. We did very well in the penalty area, kept an eye on dangers, and sacrificed when we had nobody on the bench to replace Rick Karsdorp when his shinpad was wrecked.

“All I heard was that it had been 19 months since Roma beat a top five side. Now you can say it has been 20 minutes. I will not talk about Inter Milan as they are a level above everyone else in Serie A, but it is not enough to just have tactical organization or physicality against Atalanta, AC Milan, or Napoli. You need everything to be perfect.

“In the past, this team did not feel confident when things went wrong. When under pressure, we did not do well. It has been fantastic for me to see the way that we were able to suffer. If we had conceded at half-time like we did here, we would have crumbled before. Instead, our approach remained the same. This is a really big step forward mentally.”

Jordan Veretout shone particularly in Bergamo with two assists for Zaniolo and Smalling’s second and third goals which reflected a performance where the midfield was vastly improved from previous outings and offers hope for the future.

Roma remain six points behind Atalanta and Napoli between them are yet to play, but this result and display suggests that Mourinho and his players could close the gap on the UEFA Champions League qualification positions between now and the end of the season if they can replicate this form more often.