Matteo Gabbia has stated ‘it was a wonderful win’ as Milan defeated Roma.
On Wednesday night, less than 24 hours before the match, news broke out that 3 new Milan players are positive for COVID, bringing the total of positive players to 5 and the total of absentees between injuries and AFCON to 11.
Those three players turned out to be Davide Calabria, Fikayo Tomori and Alessio Romagnoli. And so, Matteo Gabbia and Pierre Kalulu found themselves starting as center backs against Roma.
Despite some struggles against the tricky duo of Tammy Abraham and Nicolò Zaniolo, the Milan defense held on well, also thanks to a wonderful performance from Mike Maignan, and the Diavolo managed to win the game 3-1 and complete two wins over Roma in the same season.
“It was a strange situation, we found out we’d be playing just last night [Wednesday],” Gabbia told MilanTV after the final whistle of Daniele Chiffi. “That made our match prep quite different but we did very well, we stood together and did our best. Giroud’s words certainly helped Kalulu and me; he has a lot of experience. In the end, it was a great game and a wonderful win.”
On the game: “The ideas the Coach gives us during the week are clear, he makes sure we know what he wants us to do on the field, and he deserves credit for it and so do we when we do our duty.”
On the help of his teammates: “We have a lot of experienced players and I am fortunate to have many teammates who care about me and always have a word of encouragement for me. If I’m to think of my role, then Kjær and Romagnoli are the two who help me the most in training, they help me with situations off the field, like how to handle certain things. I’m grateful to them, I’m learning from them and I hope to continue improving.”
