Roma made it three wins in a week, but rode their luck and thanked some awful Verona finishing for a 2-0 victory with Artem Dovbyk and Matias Soulé goals.
The Giallorossi had won all but one of their games this season, interrupted by a 1-0 home defeat to Torino, coming off the Derby della Capitale victory and Wednesday’s 2-1 Europa League success away to OGC Nice. Paulo Dybala and Leon Bailey were still out of action, with Lorenzo Pellegrini again picked to start. Hellas held Juventus to a 1-1 draw last week, but were then knocked out of the Coppa Italia on penalties by Venezia. Daniel Mosquera had appendicitis, joining Daniel Oyegoke, Abdou Harroui, Nicolas Valentini and Tomas Suslov on the treatment table, while Victor Nelsson faced his former club.
See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.
It took just eight minutes to break the deadlock with Dovbyk’s first goal of the season on his first Serie A start. The Ukrainian was ready to steer the Zeki Celik cross back across into the far bottom corner with his head.
Verona thought they had equalised on 15 minutes when Rafik Belghali rolled across from the right for the simple Gift Orban tap-in at the back post, but Mile Svilar incredibly managed to parry with his face from point-blank range, leaving a visible bruise.
Unai Nunez performed a stunning sliding tackle in the box to stop Lorenzo Pellegrini finishing off the Dovbyk assist, but Verona wasted an astonishing opportunity.
On 28 minutes, Domagoj Bradaric rolled across and Svilar was beaten, but Orban somehow managed to prod it onto the underside of the crossbar from three yards when totally undisturbed.
Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro was fortunate to stay on the pitch when clumsily crashing into the back of Pellegrini, as he was already on a yellow card.
Hellas continued to waste chances after the restart too, Suat Serdar and then Giovane blasting over from promising positions.
Belghali cut inside and blasted straight at Svilar, then the goalkeeper had to rush off his line and time the intervention perfectly on Orban one-on-one.
Amin Sarr came off the bench and continued the trend of poor finishing, so Verona were ultimately made to pay as Roma doubled their lead.
Pellegrini robbed Serdar to spark the move, then Manu Kone’s flick was deflected off a defender into the path of Matias Soulé to sweep in undisturbed.
Lorenzo Montipò made two big saves in quick succession on Stephan El Shaarawy, then denying the Bryan Cristante angled drive on the resulting corner.
Orban finally got the ball in the net during stoppages, but it was disallowed because the header grazed his arm on the way in from a Kastanos free kick.
Roma 2-0 Verona
Dovbyk 8 (R), Soulé 79 (R)
Player statistic
| Artem Dovbyk (Assist: Zeki Celik) |
 |
7' | ||
| 12' |  |
Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro | ||
| 45' | |
Unai Núñez |
| 53' | |
Roberto Gagliardini | ||
| Matìas Soulé | |
79' | ||
| 90+1' | |
Rafik Belghali |
Match statistic
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