Gasperini: ‘Roma not lucky tonight, happy Malen and Zaragoza arrived’

Gian Piero Gasperini felt ‘luck was not on our side’ as Roma capitulated 1-0 to Udinese, but he welcomes the arrival of Donyell Malen and Bryan Zaragoza amid ‘difficulties’ on the transfer market.

The Giallorossi were ultimately undone by a deflection off Donyell Malen in the defensive wall, which gave Jurgen Ekkelenkamp’s free kick an extra spin to surprise Mile Svilar at the far top corner.

“Undoubtedly, it is never easy to play against Udinese,” Gasperini told Sky Sport Italia.

“We lacked precision in the final third, were unlucky by a few centimetres at the end and the goal we conceded showed luck was not on our side this evening.

“Nonetheless, we leave with our heads held high, and with the strength to keep improving ourselves.”

There were two big chances to equalise in stoppages, but Kostas Tsimikas was offside on the Bryan Cristante goal, then Maduka Okoye fingertipped the Gianluca Mancini toe-poke off the line.

However, there was precious little else upfront, so why the lack of scoring opportunities created?

“It was a very closed match, they too only had a couple of long-range attempts, otherwise it was difficult for both teams to build something. We were looking to do more and we didn’t manage it, but when you have five or six men in the box, that is a chance, even if we didn’t get the finish away. I feel like we did more in that sense.”

Roma have been busy in the transfer window, bringing in Malen, Robinio Vaz and today Bryan Zaragoza on loan with option to buy from Bayern Munich.

They also sent Leon Bailey back to Aston Villa midway through his loan spell.

“The transfer market is closed, now we have four months and I didn’t realise we’d have so much difficulty introducing players in roles that we had been trying to fill since the summer,” noted Gasperini when asked how happy he was with the club’s transfer strategy.

“Evidently there were a lot of difficulties. Now we have Malen and Zaragoza, who will certainly give us a hand, then some very young players. We’ll try to do our best.”

Are there any regrets or a player that he would’ve wanted to bring in at Roma?

“There were dozens of names mentioned in the media, but I’m glad we managed to get Malen and Zaragoza. I realise it’s never easy to do business in the January window, but these two players will certainly help. There are also youngsters like Venturino and Vaz who represent the future, but we cannot think they are competitive right now for such high ambitions.

“The most important thing is getting players like Manu Kone and Paulo Dybala back from injury, as this is a group that does not give up.”

This result means that Roma slipped out of the top four and into fifth place, now two points behind Juventus.

They have now amassed just two draws in the last three competitive matches, held 1-1 by Milan and in the Europa League by Panathinaikos.

“These are difficult places to play, you can win or lose, we’ve seen that throughout the season.”

Napoli coach Antonio Conte complained that there are now far too many matches and they are damaging the health of players, so how does Gasperini reflect on that?

“This is the football system now, there are more tournaments and therefore more games. The only negative aspect is that 90 per cent of the injuries happen during matches, rarely in training, and there’s probably a reason for that,” replied the Roma coach.

“There have always been injuries, but there are double now because there are double the number of matches. The big problem is that with technology we have not been able to shorten the recovery time, although the tests are more precise in identifying injuries early. When you play more, there is a greater risk of injury, that’s just statistical probability.”