Gasperini previews Europa League campaign kick-off: “Pellegrini can play again tomorrow.” | OneFootball

Roma boss Gian Piero Gasperini previewed the Europa League clash with OGC Nice scheduled for Wednesday evening.

““Yes, Dovbyk or [Evan] Ferguson can start tomorrow. They both looked very good in the last training session. They’re alternatives. My idea is to use more of the squad, to rotate and have more options. That leads to me to test out important things in games.”

“At this stage there’s a core group of players that is very solid and performing well, but it’s also true that sooner or later we need to try and have more confidence in other players so that we can deal with all the games we have to play.”

“More than attacking difficulties, my analysis of the the team – who have scored in every game – is that once we take the lead our approach changes a bit. We focus more on defending our lead than on trying to score more, and that leaves the match in the balance. That’s the impression I have. We take the lead then we don’t play the same way anymore. We may end up winning of course, but we’re a little too cautious. It’s easier to score when you’re in front than when you’re losing or it’s 0-0.”

“Boga? He’s a great player and a great kid. He came to Atalanta with big expectations, after [Alejandro] Gomez and [Josip] Ilicic. He’d had an excellent season with Sassuolo. He wasn’t able to fully live up to those expectations in Bergamo, but his attitude and conduct were good and he was also very useful with some of his performances.”

“I don’t think we can say what sort of season we’ll have in the league just yet and nor can we say that Roma are among the favourites for the Europa League. We need to keep growing, gelling as a team, and bringing more players into the mix. This is also a different competition to what it was two years ago and we have one of the most difficult fixture lists. We have to play two good teams, Stuttgart and Lille, at home and we have some tricky away games at tough grounds. We must try to pick up points in every game, taking each one as it comes.”

“Pellegrini? I think he’s capable of playing tomorrow. They can all play again after three days. Obviously he’s come from a long spell when he wasn’t playing. The match we played the other day may have had a bigger impact but I don’t think it’s a problem to play back-to-back games. The only problem could be that playing too often in this period could increase the risk of injury. It’s important to go into the match in good physical shape.”

“I think it will be a match where both teams will try to obtain the best result possible. When two teams play the same way it comes down to little details but I expect it to be an open game. I don’t think we’ll see two teams trying to hold onto a draw.”

“Angelino and Tsimikas? I don’t get a headache thinking about the qualities of these two players. We have 23 players and it’s normal to rotate them. It’s not just for those two – as I said before, we need to try and expand the squad as much as we can because you can’t play 60 games with the same players. Angelino is not coming up short. And neither is Tsimikas. They play a similar way and they’re not really suited for other positions. That’s why they’ll both play at different times, but not because either is lacking anything.”