Fabio Grosso says Fiorentina have significant work to do after his first Serie A match as head coach ended in a 4-0 defeat by Roma, while defending his decision to start Mateo Pellegrino ahead of Moise Kean.
Speaking at his news conference at Stadio Olimpico, Grosso was asked why Kean had been left on the bench. The striker has been linked with a move to Como in recent days, but the coach praised his attitude despite uncertainty over his future.
“In a game like this, it’s reductive to talk about individuals,” Grosso said.
“With Kean, I imagined a match where you had to get your hands dirty. We could have played both strikers, but it distorted us too much. So I preferred Mateo, who battled, and then in the second half I wanted to rely on Kean’s qualities. While I was making the change, we conceded.”
Grosso said Kean had continued to work professionally despite the transfer speculation surrounding him.
“I compliment him on how immersed he is in the work despite the transfer rumours,” Grosso said.
Fiorentina were beaten by four second-half goals as Roma took control, although Grosso felt there were problems in both the way his side defended and the quality of the opposition.
“We faced a strong, established team that turned up at the same level as last year,” he said.
“I knew about the difficulties. We conceded the first goal from a move I found suspicious at its start. Then we conceded the second at our best moment. We’re disappointed, but the opponent put us in trouble. We’ll take a lot from it and work to improve.”
The result left Grosso in no doubt about the scale of the challenge facing Fiorentina. He said his players would need to show more than technical ability if they were to compete consistently in Serie A.
“We have to work a lot, there’s a lot to improve,” he said.
“This obstacle is difficult regardless. Coming here against a strong team is never easy. It isn’t enough to just work, you have to play complete matches. When there’s defending and battling to be done, you do it.”
Grosso added that Fiorentina could not afford to rely on individual quality or allow opponents to dictate matches.
“To compete in this league, quality isn’t enough,” he said. “You also need intensity and the ability to repel the opponent’s. We could have avoided all the goals.”
The Fiorentina manager identified some positive individual contributions from Christ Inao Oulai, Franco Mastantuono, Mateo Pellegrino and Arthur Atta, but said the team needed to produce those moments collectively and more consistently.
“We do nice things sporadically and individually,” he said. “To break into this league, we have to do it all together. Matches have many phases, you have to stay inside them and not hand them to your opponents, conceding a fourth goal or not is not the same thing.”
Despite the emphatic scoreline, Grosso believes the defeat can provide useful lessons as he begins his tenure.
“These are all experiences for us. We need to get to know each other, but we have the qualities to build what we want. We’re convinced we’ll build a strong team that can produce a very different match to today’s.”
