\u201cI think [Gianluca] Mancini will be back as early as next week. I hope Wesley will be as well \u2013 they\u2019re both progressing positively. The injuries they suffered were less serious. As for [Paulo] Dybala, he\u2019s doing pretty decently, but his situation is less predictable. I\u2019d give him a week or two. The injuries that our players have had to deal with have definitely been detrimental from a certain point of the season onwards \u2013 I\u2019d say from the end of December onwards – especially because they\u2019ve been so long-lasting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not because of the number of injuries, per se. I\u2019m talking about, for example, what happened recently to Wesley when he was on international duty. These are injuries that are expected in a squad of players who play so many games for so many months \u2013 missing one or two weeks, not months, is normal in football. We\u2019ve had some long-term injuries, starting with [Evan] Ferguson, [Leon] Bailey, [Artem] Dovbyk and then Dybala and [Matias] Soule. I\u2019m struggling to remember them all, but there have definitely been at least six or seven, over many months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a really difficult season in this regard. We haven\u2019t had all that many muscular problems \u2013 some, yes, recently with [Mario] Hermoso \u2013 but there have been lots of unusual circumstances Of course, there have been some niggles. Some players have had to miss the odd game, like Mancini recently. There have been players who had a similar situation to Mancini \u2013 I\u2019m talking about broken noses, playing with masks and others with general aches and pains. We\u2019ve certainly had a slump, due in part to this ongoing injury crisis, which we suffered before in attack because we had so many out of action. We lost Ferguson, Dovbyk, Dybala and Soule. Tommaso Baldanzi left, so he was no longer an option for us, and our defence suffered too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those were the injury updates provided by Gian Piero Gasperini ahead of Friday\u2019s match against Pisa at the Olimpico. With that news, Gasperini will have to deal without three regular starters for this match. Gasperini was asked why players like Ghilardi, Vaz, El Aynaoui, and Zaragoza haven\u2019t played more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you also see players as I do, I make choices. Obviously I pick Mancini but Ghilardi has played a lot. Vaz has played more here than at Marseille. There\u2019s nothing lacking – everyone in this team has played and is getting game time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want Vaz to play instead of [Donyell] Malen, if you want Ghilardi to play instead of, I don\u2019t know, Ndicka, then sure, you\u2019ve got a team, a team that can play consistently. There are players who are playing, who are coming into the fold who I think have also improved, including the ones you\u2019re talking about. If that\u2019s not enough for them, then I don\u2019t know what to say,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
Gasperini was also asked about the possibility of El Aynaoui starting.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hasn\u2019t played much lately – not since the Africa Cup of Nations. I think he\u2019s had some difficulties \u2013 he was carrying something. However, he\u2019s a fit guy, as I\u2019ve said many times. During a spell before the Africa Cup of Nations he was doing very well and was playing with great consistency. As of late, in the games he\u2019s come on as a sub or has started he\u2019s not done as well as he did in the past. That being said, he\u2019s in good shape, so I\u2019m confident he can still do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it doesn\u2019t look like players like El Aynaoui, Vaz, or Zaragoza will get a start. Instead, the absences of Mancini, Kon\u00e9, and Wesley will open up spots for Ghilardi, Pisilli, and Rensch. Ghilardi joins Ndicka and Hermoso in the back three. Meanwhile, it looks like Pisilli will partner Cristante and Rensch will play opposite \u00c7elik. In attack, Malen will be supported by Soul\u00e8 and Pellegrini.<\/p>\n
ROMA (3-4-2-1): Svilar; Ghilardi, Ndicka, Hermoso; \u00c7elik, Cristante, Pisilli, Rensch; Soul\u00e8, Pellegrini; Malen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think [Gianluca] Mancini will be back as early as next week. I hope Wesley will be as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4459,4460,27,4461],"class_list":["post-5907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rome","tag-match-previews","tag-matchday-coverage","tag-rome","tag-serie-a-2025-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}