One goal conceded in four matches
One goal. That is the entire damage done to Roma’s net through four Serie A rounds, off 30 shots faced, the meanest defensive record in the division. Four wins from four, and a fifth on Saturday would give the club its best start since the back-to-back runs of 2013-14 and 2014-15.
The fixture list has helped. 4-0 past Fiorentina, 4-0 past Lecce, a late turnaround against Atalanta, then a tidy 2-0 in Turin on Monday night. Roll in the end of last season and the Giallorossi are nine league wins deep. They have only twice stretched it to 11, between December 2005 and February 2006, then again from May to October 2013.
The last Roman Scudetto landed in 2000-01. Fabio Capello in the dugout, Cafu, Walter Samuel, Francesco Totti and Gabriel Batistuta on the pitch, two points clear of Juventus at the finish. Twenty-six years have gone by since.
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Gasperini turned a 59.8% possession side into a counter-pressing one
Gian Piero Gasperini arrived in the summer of 2025, a year on from lifting the Europa League with Atalanta. What he inherited was a mess: Daniele De Rossi, Ivan Juric and Claudio Ranieri all took turns in the dugout inside a few months, and fifth place was the return.
The team plays faster now, and straighter. Roma lead Serie A for high turnovers with 52, and for high turnovers that produce a shot with 15. They also top the league for direct attacks, 13, and for average progression per sequence at 17.2 metres.
Which sits oddly next to 59.8% average possession, third-highest in the division. This is not a side that spends much time chasing the ball. It simply takes it back the moment it goes. 218 recoveries so far, at least 32 more than anyone else, 24 of them in the opposition half.
Inter have won 16 of the last 18
Saturday brings the other side still on maximum points to the Stadio Olimpico. Inter, the reigning champions, have already clawed back two-goal deficits against Napoli and Udinese this season.
Roma’s record in the fixture is bleak: two wins in 18. The most recent meeting was a 5-2 beating at San Siro in April. Roma against Inter is the highest-scoring fixture in Serie A history, 540 goals across 186 matches, an average of 2.9 a game.
“Inter are the benchmark in our league,” Gasperini said this week. “It is a chance to test ourselves.” He once had five matches in charge of Inter, back in 2011, and won none of them. The man who replaced him was Claudio Ranieri.
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