“If we keep considering the absence of [Artem] Dovbyk and [Evan] Ferguson we’re really in a very difficult situation. Dovbyk has been out for many months and he’s had an operation. If everything goes well, he might be able to return for the end of April or early May. So we can’t really keep on classifying him as a ‘missing’ player. The same goes for Ferguson. It’s clear now that he’ll finish the season here and he’ll have an ankle operation. He won’t have time to recover before the end of the season.
So those two can be removed from the list of missing players.
“As for the others, the situation is more manageable. [Donyell] Malen is available, [Robinio] Vaz is available, [Lorenzo] Venturino. We’ve got [Stephan] El Shaarawy back. We have [Lorenzo] Pellegrini and Zaragoza. We have enough players to keep playing as we have done until now. [Matias] Soule has been out for a few weeks, but the others haven’t been around much.”
Those were the injury updates that Gian Piero Gasperini opened his pre-match presser with. Clearly, the news on the striker position wasn’t good, as he indicated that both Dovbyk and Ferguson willcontribute little to nothing for the rest of the season.
In addition to the two strikers, Gasperini will once again have to do without Soulé, Paulo Dybala, and Mario Hermoso due to injuries. Gasperini said he hopes to have the center back available for next week’s match against Como. Additionally, he will have to do without Wesley, who is out because of a yellow card suspension, but the manager was vague when asked how he would cover for the Brazilian’s absence.
“Wesley is suspended and that can happen when the yellow cards stack up. We have a couple of options. We’ll see. As an alternative to Wesley on the left, we have [Kostas] Tsimikas, we have him [Rensch], we have [Zeki] Celik, we have [Daniele] Ghilardi. That’s what we have. Celik can play at the back, on the flank. Those are your options.”
Angeliño also remains out and Gasperini spoke on his recovery.
“That I don’t know. That’s another situation that’s hard to predict. He’s definitely better. He’s definitely training and improving but I don’t know in performance terms. He’s certainly improved recently but for a while he was completely out, completely inactive, so we’ll have to see.
Gasperini was also asked if it was possible that Bryan Cristante could be rested after a subpar performance against Juve. The Roma manager seemed to shoot that idea down.
“Cristante is playing lots and lots of games and you don’t always know how well you’ll recover. Now we’re going to be playing back to back and this is when it becomes a bit more difficult for everyone: understanding when you need an extra day to recover or when you’re able to recover between Thursday and Sunday. But Cristante is indispensable. It’s always difficult for me to leave him out because he’s so important in the air and we don’t have others in attacking positions or midfield who have that ability, besides his versatility and everything else. But even he can’t always play. There are times when he needs a bit more time to recover. Plus in that area of the pitch we have several very good alternatives.”
With all that in mind, we’re expecting a couple of changes from last week’s thriller against the Bianconeri. Devyne Rensch is expected to slide to the left wing. That allows Zeki Çelik to move out of the back three and to the right wing back position that he has played most of the season. With those two moving spots, Daniele Ghilardi will slot into the left center back spot in the back three. So, essentially only Wesley leaves the XI, but a few players will be reshuffled around the pitch.
ROMA (3-4-2-1): Svilar; Mancini, Ndicka, Ghilardi; Çelik, Cristante, Koné, Rensch; Pisilli, Pellegrini; Malen.
