Paulo Fonseca reveals Leonardo Spinazzola will start for Roma against Genoa just days after a failed Inter transfer amid an injury crisis. “I must admit, I am worried.”
It kicks off on Sunday at 17.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.
Paulo Fonseca reveals Leonardo Spinazzola will start for Roma against Genoa just days after a failed Inter transfer amid an injury crisis. “I must admit, I am worried.”
It kicks off on Sunday at 17.00 GMT, click here for a match preview.
The week has been dominated by the failed exchange of Matteo Politano with Spinazzola, but incredibly the full-back will start against Genoa just hours after returning from that Inter medical.
“I am not changing the system, so I can confirm Spinazzola and Davide Santon will play,” confirmed Fonseca in his press conference.
The emergency situation is caused by bans to both Alessandro Florenzi and Aleksandar Kolarov, while Diego Perotti is another addition to the injury list on top of Nicolò Zaniolo.
“I am worried, to be honest. For example, in a very important week for us in which we’ll play Genoa, Juventus in the Coppa Italia and Lazio, we only have Justin Kluivert on the left and Cengiz Under for the right flank. Our only available trequartista is Lorenzo Pellegrini. So I am worried.
“Bryan Cristante was out for such a long time, we have to be careful and he won’t play tomorrow, as he can’t play two games in a row. Javier Pastore is improving, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan might be available against Lazio.
“We are trying to find a wide player for our attack, because Perotti had a knock against Parma and it’s frankly unlikely he’ll be ready against Juve either.
“The player we are looking for now is not Politano. It’s true that I wanted to have Politano here, but I don’t know the details of what happened and I have total faith in my club. If they made this decision to look elsewhere, it means there must’ve been a good reason.
“Spinazzola is fine, he trained well, he will play tomorrow and is happy about that.”
Fonseca confessed this first experience in Serie A is a huge learning curve.
“I always played with one or two systems and don’t believe much in change, but I must say that in Italy I did change and I like it. I used to think it was a problem to change system, but I don’t believe that now. I really think that after experiencing Italian football, I am ready for anything.”
Roma squad for Genoa: Pau Lopez, Cardinali, Fuzato; Juan Jesus, Smalling, Cetin, Santon, Mancini, Bruno Peres, Spinazzola; Cristante, Pellegrini, Veretout, Diawara; Dzeko, Under, Kalinic, Kluivert