Need to Know: Di Francesco's key pre-Udinese comments

Eusebio Di Francesco held his pre-match press conference on Friday to preview the Serie A trip to face Udinese.

Saturday's game at the Dacia Arena gets underway at 15:00 CET.

We've rounded up the key comments from the boss ahead of the clash.

On his team selection...

“We'll certainly change a few more things around this week than we have done in recent outings. I rotated a lot earlier in the season and we picked up some great results. We have to get back to doing that.

“Juan Jesus could be involved tomorrow – he's one of the options I have, either in the centre or at left-back. As for [Daniele] De Rossi, when you come back from an injury it's easier to play two games in a row than three, so he may well feature tomorrow and on Wednesday.”

On his ongoing targets...

“You have to be ambitious in this job. Sometimes we talk about things that aren't really related to the game but I'd rather just talk about football in these press conferences. It's easy to get caught up in idle gossip in Rome.

"We have to focus on the task at hand if we want to build for the future. I must do better as a coach and the footballers have to focus on the here and now – tomorrow's Serie A match and then the Champions League on Wednesday – without wasting time or energy on other things. I say that to the players all the time.”

On finding consistency...

“We'd like to play fabulous football and also have great results but you can't always have both things. In this moment in time we needed to put points on the board. I'm happy with how the lads have fared but we haven't been consistent enough. Sometimes we start games strongly while other times we're slow out of the blocks – Verona and Benevento were complete opposites in that respect. Tomorrow I hope to see us start strong and finish even stronger.”

On the formation...

“Playing the way we have [4-2-3-1] has helped the team to grow and it's an advantage to be able to play different systems. We can work on both formations and decide game by game. I'll try to change as little as possible tomorrow so that we can try to continue playing the way we have been.”

On Patrik Schick...

“Patrick has trained really well this week and I'm happy with him but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be in the starting line-up. He's improved the mental side of his game and looks reborn in every way.”