Gasperini: ‘Roma glass half full, but Dybala injury is the biggest loss’

Gian Piero Gasperini sees the glass half-full for Roma after defeat to AC Milan, despite ‘regret’ at wasted chances, but ‘the biggest loss is Paulo Dybala’s injury.’

The Giallorossi knew a victory here would make them the sole leaders of Serie A after Napoli were held to a 0-0 draw by Como.

Instead, they were caught in joint second place on 21 points by Milan and Inter with their first away defeat of the season.

“People want at all costs to find what didn’t go well, but I find it easier to look at what went well and was just centimetres away,” Gasperini told DAZN Italia.

“We created lots of chances, this is the approach I want to take, and when you leave these games empty-handed there is a lot of regret, but also confidence we are on the right path.”

Although they had dominated the first half, they were wasteful and punished by Strahinja Pavlovic tapping in the Rafael Leao counter-attack.

Paulo Dybala had the opportunity to equalise late on, but his penalty was saved by Mike Maignan, and La Joya seemed to sustain a thigh injury in the process.

“I think we made the step up in quality today in everything except the finishing. Our first half was excellent, with strong character to dominate a strong team on their own turf. We suffered a little after their goal and the start of the second half, but then got back to pushing again,” insisted Gasperini.

“I am struggling to find negatives from the performance. Naturally, we are angry and have regrets at the defeat, but unfortunately in football you can miss chances by centimetres, I remain happy with the overall performance.

“This team has spirit, it can play good football, we’ve certainly paid a price over these last few months for failing to convert four out of five penalties, which are a lot between Serie A and the Europa League.

“The other thing we need to improve is that I see many big clubs pouring forward and they still manage to get a goal somewhere even in chaotic fashion. I think that is what we are lacking, when you dominate a game to this degree, you need to take home the result.”

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That was the first penalty that Dybala failed to convert in the Roma jersey, as he hadn’t gone without scoring from the spot in any competitive match since November 30, 2021 for Juventus against Salernitana.

“The worst thing of all on the penalty is that Dybala got injured. Now we need to see how long he’ll be out, certainly until after the break for international duty. This is the biggest loss of the night,” confirmed the coach.

It was a sad day at San Siro for the two coaches, as both Max Allegri and Gasperini lost their mentor, following the death of Giovanni Galeone at age 84.

“I was thinking today we played against Pisa and were challenging for promotion from Serie B, I made three or four passes back to the goalkeeper at the end, and back then he could pick it up, as I was trying to hold on to a point. Afterwards he told me, don’t be doing that, we want to play for the win to the end. He was a great maestro in that sense.”