Victory over Udinese moved Roma up to fourth, an impressive position when set against their lengthy injury listRomelu Lukaku’s best goal yet for Internazionale. Cristiano Ronaldo bagging a 95th-minute winner to put Juventus back on top of the table. Six players sent off in an evening, and Carlo Ancelotti seeing red, too, after his Napoli team blew their second lead of the night against Atalanta. Serie A’s midweek round was certainly eventful.We will get to all the stories mentioned above, but this also feels like a moment when we need to talk about Chris Smalling. He scored his first Serie A goal on Wednesday, the second of four in Roma’s romp past Udinese. The strike itself was nothing special –...
Arsenal and Manchester United have offloaded players whose 2018 swap deal conspicuously failed to live up to expectationsThe Liverpool teenager Bobby Duncan appears to have bucked a growing trend by leaving to join Fiorentina in Italy. Whatever the rights and wrongs of a dispute with the European champions that led to the player’s exit, Fiorentina are at least getting a promising young talent at the right age.Most of the recent Italian imports from the Premier League have been just the opposite, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan joining Alexis Sánchez in Serie A after failing to convince he was worth a regular place at Arsenal. Related: Arsenal’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan joins Roma in loan with option to buy Related: Alexis Sánchez says he ‘didn’t...
The champions may have landed De Ligt, Rabiot and Ramsey but all has not run smoothly for Maurizio Sarri this summerItalian football’s summer break began in much the same way as the season had ended: with Juventus way out in front. By 1 July they had concluded the free agent signings of Aaron Ramsey and Adrien Rabiot. Then they did something far more audacious: signing Matthijs de Ligt from Ajax for €75m.Even for a club that signed Cristiano Ronaldo one year previously, it felt like a landmark deal. When did an Italian side last win a bidding war for one of European football’s most coveted young talents? At 19 years old, De Ligt had already started in a Champions League...
Other matches featured seven goals, two penalties and red cards but Atalanta’s comeback against Roma beat the lotIt was one of those days in Serie A. Oh, you know the sort: when the lunchtime kick-off features seven goals, two penalties, and a red card, but turns out not to be the most entertaining game of the afternoon. Next up on Sunday came a pair of three-goal comebacks plus a 4-0 away win for a Frosinone team that had only scored 12 times all season.There was drama everywhere, from the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi – where Fiorentina blew a two-goal lead, then recovered to beat Chievo with 10 men – to the Tardini – where Spal ended an 11-game winless run after...
Before the unconvincing win over Genoa, banners and posters appeared all over the city telling Roma’s president to ‘go home’It is sometimes said, in a sporting context, that winning cures all ills. But not in Italy’s capital city. Roma beat Genoa 3-2 at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday night, their first victory in six games across all competitions. They were jeered at the final whistle, all the same.It had not been a compelling performance. Roma trailed twice to opponents who have not won a game themselves since September. Genoa appeared to have taken the lead for a third time at the start of the second half, but Darko Lazovic’s strike was ruled out after a VAR review. They ought to...