Following the 4-3 victory over Lecce, Coach D’Aversa gave his thoughts on the match and took stock of Parma’s season as a whole:
“We’ve had a great season, especially given the difficulties we’ve faced, especially with injuries. We’ve had to do without some key players for long spells this season, like Inglese, Cornelius, our top strikers. It wasn’t easy, but the boys have managed to top last season’s performance. At one point it looked like things might not turn out so well for us, and at times, we didn’t have the best of luck, for example when we faced Inter and Verona, when we might have hoped for different outcomes. But in any case, our goal was to secure safety. What’s more, there were times when we performed really well but the results just didn’t come. But you’ve got to take a balanced view when you’re looking back on defeats. The only two slip-ups that I can really complain to the boys about were on of our matches against Sampdoria and one against Bologna. Of course, we made some errors this season, and that had an impact on the standings, but I’ve got to say that we’re in a fantastic position in the league, something which was made possible by tonight’s result, so all credit to the boys for that.
In the first half we made some mistakes, we did well to go 2-0 up against a side that had a lot to play for tonight, but we let it slip, and missed plenty of chances to close the game out. This is something we’ve had trouble with in other matches this season, and at times we’ve ended up sabotaging ourselves, but I must say that we did well to bring home the three points tonight, and this strong position in the standings is something that we’ve been working towards since the first day of pre-season. We’re happy with how we’ve done in the league, but I also think that I’ve got a squad of players who will be kicking themselves because we could have done even better, especially given how we’ve performed on the pitch this season.
“Room for improvement? It depends on what the Club is looking to achieve. A coach always has to work with what he has at his disposal. The season came to a close today, so we need to plan and talk about the future. Coaches are always ambitious, they always want to try to improve, especially because the coach is always responsible when things go bad. Judgement is always passed on him, and nobody else. What I want, and I hope that I share this wish with the club, is that we work to improve the squad. Doing well in the league in recent years hasn’t been easy, and we’ve needed to close the gap. In spite of that, we’ve done well to get the results. Consolidating our position in Serie A this season has been really important, because two out of three teams get relegated in their first season in Serie A, and usually the team that survived goes down the year after. Parma are doing great things. Let’s not forget where we started, and before I joined the Club, we were in Serie D. We’ve grown a lot in recent years, but I think that we still need to improve in a lot of facets of our game”.
(Photo Getty Images)
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Source: legaseriea.it