Gasperini: ‘Roma certainly improved as Europa League went on’

Gian Piero Gasperini feels Roma ‘certainly improved as we went on’ in the Europa League, but isn’t sure if he’d call them ‘among the favourites’ for the trophy.

It was the worst possible start to their match in Athens, as within 15 minutes Gianluca Mancini had been sent off for pulling back Milos Pantovic by the shoulder, denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity.

Panathinaikos took the lead when Vicente Taborda pounced on a Daniele Ghilardi misplaced header back towards his own goalkeeper, but Jan Ziolkowski’s diving header late on snatched a point for the 10 men.

“You can criticise Roma for many things, but not the character shown by all these players,” Gasperini told Sky Sport Italia.

“Incidents are decisive in football and we were unlucky on the opening goal with a header backwards, so the best chance we had of equalising was I assumed a set play. Ziolkowski had gone close to a goal before and he did really well to stay up there to meet it.”

There was a long list of absentees this evening, the latest being Paulo Dybala, so Roma had to improvise, but the young players stepped up.

“I’ve been working with young players for most of my life, so I give them responsibility. I saw with Atalanta and now here, the older players always have words of advice and support for the younger elements, they really set the example and give confidence to these lads.”

It means they scrape into eighth place and go directly into the Europa League Round of 16, avoiding the play-offs, and won’t be back in action until March.

“I don’t know if we are among the favourites or not, but we have certainly improved as we went on in the competition, gaining confidence and experience. It wouldn’t have been a problem for me if we had been in the play-offs, it’s only two games and could’ve been a valuable opportunity to test different players,” continued Gasperini.

“Where a packed schedule is a problem is injuries, as when you play so often, they become more likely. That is the only negative. If it was up to be, I’d play more and train less,” smiled the coach.

Is this because Gasperini was such a notorious taskmaster with incredibly tough training routines?

“I think the players agree with me, they much prefer playing to training too! I’ve become much nicer now. We play every three days anyway, most of the time our training sessions are matches, and vice versa. The match situation is the ideal way to improve and test things out.”

Roma had not managed a single draw this season, but this was their second in a row after the stalemate with Milan in Serie A.

“We’ve been scoring fairly regularly for a while, and are creating many more chances. It was tough today as we were down to 10 men, forcing us out of position and we had to work a lot harder, but we still got the result.”