Juric reveals Baldanzi issue, but confident Roma ‘in good shape’ | OneFootball

Ivan Juric explains his Roma choices in the absence of Paulo Dybala against Monza and reveals further injury issues for Tommaso Baldanzi too. ‘The team is in good shape.’

It kicks off at the U-Power Stadium at 17.00 UK time (16.00 GMT).

You can follow all the build-up and action as it happens from today’s five Serie A games on the Liveblog.

Dybala is out with a muscular injury and Mats Hummels has flu symptoms, joining Enzo Le Fée and Alexis Saelemaekers on the absentee list.

The coach was asked why he had chosen Matias Soulé to start in Dybala’s role rather than Tommaso Baldanzi.

“Baldanzi has a sore leg, so we didn’t want to risk it. Soulé plays with character, he tries the moves, they don’t all work, but he really has that hunger to prove his talent,” Juric told Sky Sport Italia.

While the Giallorossi have won all three Serie A matches under Juric, they scraped only a 1-1 home draw against Athletic Club and on Thursday lost 1-0 away to Elfsborg in the Europa League.

Juric confident Roma on right path

Considering they were in Sweden on Thursday evening, have the Roma players fully recovered from the strain of the Europa League?

“We’ll see tonight. We’re trying to use every training session to introduce something of interest, but I feel like they have to train physically by playing. The team is in good shape.”

Dovbyk had been rested midweek, but how does his return to the starting XI change the way Roma will attack Monza?

“Dovbyk is quick running into spaces and good in the penalty area, so we need to make the most of those two main characteristics.”

Juric said after the 1-0 defeat to Elfsborg that he saw a very strong performance, so how did the team react to that loss?

“Our reaction was disappointment that we lost a game when dominating, but there were many positives. We need to work on the details, there are very few days to prepare that in training, but the team always played well,” assured the coach.