Roma’s Mourinho puzzled after sending off for crying gesture

Jose Mourinho says he doesn’t understand why he was sent off for crying towards the end of Roma’s 1-0 win over Monza on Sunday.

A 90th-minute goal from Stephan El Shaarawy secured Roma’s victory against Monza, who were reduced to 10 men after Danilo D’Ambrosio was sent off in the first half.

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Mourinho also received a red card in stoppage time after he seemed to make a gesture towards the Monza technical staff.

“I don’t know why I got the red card, I only gestured towards the bench, not a single word,” Mourinho said.

“The Monza bench put a lot of pressure on the referee, they shouldn’t have behaved like that.”

The sending off means Mourinho will not be on the bench for Roma’s next league match, against his former club Inter Milan.

Despite appearing to mock Monza’s coaching staff, Mourinho was full of praise for the visiting team for their performance with 10 men.

“They didn’t deserve to lose the match,” Mourinho added. “My team was always in difficulty, we made a lot of mistakes and we suffered. It was a match with a low technical level but with a lot of emotion.”

After a poor start to the season, Roma have now won three consecutive league matches and move ahead of Monza into sixth place in the Serie A table.

Information from Reuters was included in this report.