De Rossi: ‘Inter are stronger than Genoa, but we have hope’

Daniele De Rossi admits Genoa ‘have to accept Inter are better than us’ after a 2-0 defeat, but he has ‘hope’ they can escape relegation.

The Grifone were coming off a morale-boosting 3-0 victory over Torino, but knew that it would be a tougher task at San Siro against the runaway Serie A leaders.

Nonetheless, it took an extraordinary piece of skill to break the deadlock, when Federico Dimarco met Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s dinked pass for a sensational volley.

Hakan Calhanoglu doubled the lead from the spot after Alex Amorim’s handling offence in the second half, sealing the 2-0 result.

De Rossi expected more from Genoa

“We conceded the second goal when we were trying to push forward and equalise,” De Rossi told Sky Sport Italia.

“I am not satisfied with our performance. We know Inter are the strongest team in Serie A, but we still didn’t do all that we could’ve done to cause them problems.

“I knew we’d need a perfect performance to bring home a result, we didn’t come here to lose, but we have to accept they are better than us.”

Genoa have managed to clamber out of the relegation zone with some positive results, but even strong performances were not enough to avoid defeats to Lazio, Napoli and now Inter.

“Our position in the table is still not good, but there is a long way to go,” added the coach.

“I think we are on the right track and have the quality it takes to get out of this situation, just look at how we played against Lazio and Napoli.”

Since taking the job on November 6 from Patrick Vieira, De Rossi has overseen five wins, six draws and six defeats in Serie A.

“There is a team in mind that I want to build, but the fact remains we don’t have much time to work on that, and the transfer window is closed too, so we have to work with what we’ve got.

“We’re on the right track, these lads are giving me hope,” concluded De Rossi.