Former Real Madrid, AS Roma and Italy international Antonio Cassano has said Jose Mourinho has never been a great coach.
Mourinho took charge of Roma in July 2021 and delivered their first-ever continental title last year by winning the Europa Conference League.
The Rome-based club currently sit third in the table after a 2-1 win over Empoli.
But it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Mourinho, who has come under fire for signing older players like ex-Chelsea and Man Utd midfielder Nemanja Matic.
Antonio Cassano
The 60-year-old has also fallen out with key men including Rick Karsdorp and Nicolo Zaniolo, with the latter now set to join Galatasaray.
And Roma saw their Coppa Italia run come to a shuddering end with a 2-1 home defeat in the quarters to lowly Cremonese.
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The exit came days after a 2-1 loss at runaway league leaders Napoli.
And those consecutive defeats spurred Cassano into action, holding little back when talking about Mourinho’s past and present endeavours in the dugout.
“Mourinho has never been a great coach, he just knew how to play the media and was a great communicator,” Cassano told BoboTV.
“He is good at dealing with strong players, not ones who aren’t very good. It’s too easy to just be friendly with great players.
“It’s just a disaster upon a disaster at Roma, he got them to spend money on Nemanja Matic and Rui Patricio, they were his decisions.
“The other day, that performance made me want to vomit. He doesn’t know how to set out a team. Even with your second-string squad, you need to beat Cremonese.”
Cassano added:“It was Mourinho’s disaster with Karsdorp, putting him in the stocks, disintegrating and insulting him in front of everyone. Now Karsdorp is coming back, who knows why?
“So that was one mess. As for Zaniolo, he gets to talk about that and not why his Roma team plays like c**p. It’s been a year-and-a-half that this Roma side hasn’t played proper football.”
