This is what the boss had to say:

Your team are racking up a series of records: you've now scored 28 goals in your first ten games – never before have Roma scored so many. There's a huge difference with last season. How do you explain this change?

“Sometimes the numbers do tell you the story. Besides scoring lots of goals, we're also scoring with many different players. That shows how much confidence there is in the team: lots of players believe they can make a decisive contribution, be it with an assist or a goal. We're scoring more goals with more players and that's a great sign.”

It was a phenomenal first half with loads of chances and four goals scored. Then in the second half the team's intensity seemed to drop off a little, with the points already in the bag. Is that something you need to improve if you want to be in the Scudetto conversation?

“I don't know because the other teams battling for the top spots have a few problems of their own. I think it's quite normal. When you're 4-0 up, even though at half time we said we needed to be careful, keep defending well and not concede any goals, that sort of thing can happen. We're playing back-to-back games and this was our seventh in three weeks, so it's not necessarily the physical energy that's lacking but perhaps our focus levels. The first goal was a long-range shot while the second was a bad goal to concede because we were all in position and it was a lapse in concentration. Nevertheless, games like this give us the chance to try out and use other players.”

Daniele Ghilardi scored today and several other young players have scored in recent games. What's your secret?

“I'm lucky to have all my players – even the not-so-young ones – who really listen to me. Youngsters nearly always do that because they're keen to establish themselves and improve. I'm lucky because we have a great mix of players. We may have other shortcomings but they all give me everything. Ghilardi was annoyed because he had that goal disallowed in the Champions League, and a fantastic goal it was too. He really wanted to score and tonight he scored a cracker.”

With all these back-to-back games, would you say this is the hardest time to be a coach in Italy? Or have you seen even worse periods in your 20 years of coaching in Serie A?

“I can't really remember such a long spell of playing two games every week like this. I've been through similar experiences, like when we won the Europa League at Atalanta. We were still in the Coppa Italia and we were battling in Serie A to qualify for the Champions League. We went all the way in every competition. That was in March-April, though – a different time of the season. I can't remember anything quite like this. You do accumulate fatigue because every match is of the highest level and they're all very difficult. I think after the next international break, although we'll still have lots of matches, it will be a bit less tricky. We've had the likes of [Mile] Svilar, [Lorenzo] Pellegrini, Paulo [Dybala] and [Manu] Kone missing throughout this period, but being able to rotate the squad and give everyone game time has definitely helped us.”

Could you perhaps get Kone, Svilar or Dybala back before the break?

“It's unlikely but I'm hopeful. In theory all three could return, but it might be none. We'll see what happens this week.”