Juric ‘saw positives’ from Roma, but reveals Dybala injury scare | OneFootball

Ivan Juric saw ‘lots of positives’ from Roma’s 1-1 Europa League draw with Athletic Club, regrets wasted chances and reveals Paulo Dybala went off with a muscular problem.

The Giallorossi had a strong start, took the lead through Artem Dovbyk and dominated possession in the first half, but failed to capitalise on that pressure.

Instead, they sat back increasingly deep after the restart and eventually capitulated to the Aitor Paredes header on a knocked down free kick for the final 1-1 result.

“I saw moments of great football, but Athletic are more accustomed to this type of long ball game and wouldn’t even allow us to press them in the second half. Despite that, they didn’t really create many chances other than the goal,” Juric told Sky Sport Italia.

“It’s a pity, as we created opportunities and did not take them, including the one with Soulé in the second half. We were punished for not making the most of those chances, we should’ve been more clinical, but I saw a lot of positives.”

The equaliser was an Alex Berenguer free kick that was nodded down at the back post by Unai Gomez for the Paredes header from six yards, so what went wrong with the marking?

“Mario was there, Angelino jumps too even if he’s short, it was two against one, so the positions were right. These are small details, if they had been a little bit more open then they might’ve got the ball. It’s a pity, but these are small details.”

Juric reveals Dybala injury scare for Roma

Dybala was replaced by Soulé at half-time, but while many assumed this was a planned change, Juric revealed it was down to an injury.

“He felt a twinge, we’ll see. We certainly did not want to run any risks. We’ll have to see tomorrow, there’s no point talking about it now.”

Zeki Celik also went off with a muscular problem and these perhaps forced Juric to use up substitutions that could not be used for other alternatives.

“We had hoped to play Dybala for 60-70 minutes. As they introduced great players and we lost intensity, they gained ground,” added the coach.

Using Dybala and Tommaso Baldanzi between the lines in support of Dovbyk had worked to cause Athletic Club problems.

“I have five or six really interesting young players to work with and Baldanzi really impressed me, as he works in attack and defence, you can see he worked on his strength and change of pace. Whether as a trequartista or a mezz’ala, he can do either very well. Pisilli too is eager to learn, you can see how quickly they absorb these ideas,” continued Juric.

“We were a bit too slow moving it around for the first 10 minutes, but from then on we gained confidence and dominated them in every way. We should’ve scored more goals, as we never let them past our centre-circle.

“I saw a lot of positives in these first two games, now we will try to keep this attitude for the next match. I think the lads understood my ideas today and interpreted them the right way.”