Napoli travel to Rome looking to add to their ten-match win streak in all competitions, while a Paulo Dybala-less Roma hope to climb closer to the top of the table.
AS Roma
On the back of a Europa Conference League cup win, the Friedkin’s and Jose Mourinho have restored enthusiasm for calcio in Rome.
Despite a number of injuries over the course of the season, Roma have only dropped points in three matches – against Juventus, Udinese and Atalanta.
The Giallorossi’s achilles heel has been their inability to finish. Up until the previous round, Roma led all Serie A clubs in xG, but had only scored 12 goals – also the largest variance between goals and expected goals in the league.
With their 0-1 victory over bottom-of-the-table Sampdoria, Roma ranked 8th in the league with only 13 goals scored. Five of those goals were scored by Paulo Dybala, whose expected to be out of the squad until 2023. Roma will look to Tammy Abraham to break out of his goal-scoring slump to fill the void. The Englishman has only two goals this season, once again underperforming his xG (4.8).
SSC Napoli
Napoli enter this match having won a club-record ten consecutive matches in all competitions. Aside from Milan, who, according to Stefano Pioli, deserved a better result, Roma will be Napoli’s most difficult opponent to date in Serie A.
Last season, Roma ended Napoli’s perfect start with a 0-0 draw at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Napoli had won eight consecutive matches prior to the draw. Meanwhile, Luciano Spallettone Spalletti has never beaten Jose Mourinho.
In order to win, Napoli will need to tighten up at the back. The Azzurri have conceded two goals in each of the two matches played without Amir Rrahmani and have conceded at least one goal in all but four matches in all competitions.
Injuries/Suspensions
Two of Roma’s big summer signings continue to miss matches due to injury. Paulo Dybala and Genie Wijnaldum are both expected to be out until 2023, the former due to a hamstring injury and the latter due to a fractured tibia. Zeki Celik will also miss the match despite returning to training earlier in the week. However, Mourinho is expected to recover Marash Kumbulla, who will like start on the bench.
For Napoli, Amir Rrahmani continues to recover from a thigh injury that will keep him out until 2023. André-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s thigh injury is not as severe as Rrahmani’s, but the midfielder, who has yet to complete a full group training session, will not be risked. Meanwhile, backup goalkeeper, Salvatore Sirigu, did not participate in training on Thursday and Friday due to a muscle strain and is not likely to be in the matchday squad.
Probable Formations
Manager’s Comments
Jose Mourinho:
“The strength of Napoli is the offensive strength, yes, they’ve scored many goals. But it is not true that we are not offensive. We haven’t scored goals, but we’ve created a lot. We have never waited for anyone. We haven’t scored because we make a lot of mistakes, not because we are defensive. Maybe tomorrow we’ll take three shots and score three goals. With Atalanta, we took 20 shots to Atalanta’s one, and it ended 0-1 for Atalanta. We will try to win the game. I feel Napoli are a strong favourite, scoring a lot of goals, defending well and ok, then we’ll go play and see what we can do.”
Luciano Spalletti:
“We want to put our qualities on the field. We must continue to do what we know how to do, with even more quality and speed than how we’ve done it. They [Roma] have this characteristic of affecting results with set pieces, the numbers confirm this. It depends on how much we concede, we have to try to hold the ball more to avoid idle balls around our area. We do not want to distort our quality.”
Previous Meetings
| April 18, 2022 | SSC Napoli | 1-1 | AS Roma |
| October 24, 2021 | AS Roma | 0-0 | SSC Napoli |
| March 21, 2021 | AS Roma | 0-2 | SSC Napoli |
| November 29, 2021 | SSC Napoli | 4-0 | AS Roma |
| July 5, 2020 | SSC Napoli | 2-1 | AS Roma |
Match Officials
Head Official: Massimiliano Irrati
Assistants: Alessandro Lo Cicero and Alessio Tolfo
Fourth Official: Gianluca Manganiello
VAR: Aleandro Di Paolo and Matteo Passeri
Psychologically it would be supreme to have Spalletti vanquish a Mourinio Side as he has been a thorn in many top coaches side for nearly two decades. We are clearly the more talented side and we have to play with the confidence this marvellous winning run has garnered. Bigger night for Spalletti more so than the squad? Let’s get this hurdle jumped Coach.