AS Roma coach Claudio Ranieri refused to criticise the players after their 4-1 thrashing by Napoli.

Dries Mertens, Arkadiusz Milik and Simone Verdi were all on the scoresheet for Napoli on Sunday.

“We are trying to do everything, to be honest. It's an odd time, we conceded the first goal at the first attempt. We managed to equalise and I'm not even sure how," Ranieir told Sky Sport Italia.

“After the restart, again straight away we went behind again. It's hard to help the team, the others run faster, harder and we are doing all that we can.

“The players told me they haven't had as much fitness training this season, as they had so many injuries and there was no consistency. They had a packed schedule and couldn't train, just play or recuperate.

“I am trying to get them to train, but it's not easy. Then we had Nicolò Zaniolo, who is in great shape at the moment, but had a stomach bug on Friday and told me he wasn't in condition to start today.

“It was tough, as Napoli swarm around you, change position constantly and make it very difficult to defend against."