De Rossi wrong to retaliate - Conte

Antonio Conte insists that Daniele De Rossi is aware of his mistake after he was sent off for kicking out at Bulgaria's Iliyan Mitsanski during Italy's 1-0 victory on Sunday.

While the victory took the Italians closer to sealing their qualification for Euro 2016, Conte says that De Rossi's crude dismissal was due to an error in judgement from the Roma midfielder following a crude challenge from his opponent.

And the former Juventus manager says that De Rossi - who scored the only goal from the penalty spot - should have known better than to retaliate.

"Honestly I didn't see the incident, but if he did react then obviously he was in the wrong. It's very, very simple," Conte told a news conference.

"I didn't see what happened, but if he did react then he committed a mistake because he could have compromised everything and that cannot happen.

"Again, though, I didn't see what happened, but I think that he knows what he did was wrong and there is very little to say about it."

Conte again rued Italy's profligacy in the victory, with Graziano Pelle twice coming close to scoring, while Mattia De Sciglio had a half-volley kept out by Bulgaria goalkeeper Bozhidar Mitrev.

"Well I think that this is a match which is fairly simple to analyse," Conte added.

"We created many chances, but we weren't able take advantage of them.

"Obviously this allowed the game to be completely open up until the end and in turn we became slightly apprehensive, because this result was very important for us… especially after what happened in the game between Norway and Croatia, with Norway winning 2-0.

"At the start many proclaimed ours to be an easy group, but I think they were proven wrong.

"Actually this might even be the hardest group there is, as Croatia - who many said was the best team in the group - is starting to realise now.

"So now there is still a tough road ahead of us and we will need to fight if we want to qualify, which is still anything but certain at this point."