Roma vs Caglalri Talking Points #2611

A.S Roma

The Champions League is on the Table

Although Roma's European journey came to an end last week. Roma come away with a considerable victory at home against Cagliari. It may not have been pretty. However, Roma did get the result in the end as Artem Dovbyk's scoring in the second half was enough to grab maximum points. This opens up their unbeaten run in the league to 13 matches. Since the start of 2025, Roma has been a different type of animal. No team in Europe has collected as many points as Roma has in 2025. Roma continues to tug along and climb. The objective hierarchy started to adjust as Roma started to meet some of the original expectations. Ranieri took over the team when they were in 15th. For context at that same time. Lazio was in 4th and Fiorentina was in fifth. They have reached every objective that has been put in their way since. The first hurdle was getting Roma into the top 10. Roma sat there for quite a while. The next objective was to get them into the top eight. They have now done that. The next objective was to get themselves within points of the European places. They have now done that. Roma has won five matches in a row in the league. They also are partly responsible for the collapse of Napoli who were flying until they played Roma and since then have been incredibly inconsistent. After the victory on Sunday, not only did Roma keep chugging along. However, they've also made up some ground within the teams. Currently holding down European positions. On top of that two of the teams in the vicinity have also lost. Champions League football is on the table. Roma has a possibility of playing in the Champions League next season. There's plenty of work to get done. However, if Ranieri could pull this off, it would be a footballing miracle. He took over the team in 15th. They now sit in 7th. Lazio sitting six and fiorentina are now in 8th. Juventus lost to Fiorentina on Sunday. Lazio was beaten by Bologna as well. This means just four points between themselves and the Champions League. Roma's next match is against Lecce something that is more than winnable at this point. It would take their unbeaten run to 14 matches. However, after that, some difficulties Will come into play. Immediately we'll have to play Lazio and Juventus back to back. If Roma wins those two games Champions League football may be a reality for them. During this final stretch of the season they also will have to play against AC. Milan, Inter Milan, Atalanta and fiorentina. So after their next match essentially every match. The rest of the season will be difficult. However, Roma is more than capable of keeping this thing going until the end of the season. Qualifying for the Europa League might even be considered a miracle however Champions League football has not been on the radar. It seemed inconceivable. However, that being said, now they're staring down the barrel. Looking at the possible Champions League drought to end. There's plenty of work to be done but as Roma looks onwards all of a sudden they are within Four Points of the Champions League positions. If they could pull this off it would be a perfect end to Ranieri's managerial career. Let's not count our eggs before they hatch, but Roma all of a sudden have their chips in the middle of the table with for the first time Champions League in mind.

Artem Dovbyk Growing into Role

Artem Dovbyk came into this season with a lot of expectations. He scored 24 goals in La Liga last season winning the Golden Boot. He was one of the prized assets of this transfer market at the center forward position. He has scored 20 goals or more in two consecutive seasons. He has proven to be a real asset and had an outstanding campaign in Spain. He was a highly priced asset that cost Roma 38 million. He was also linked with Atletico Madrid, however, he was determined to make the move to the Italian Capital. The Ukrainian has had a very decent campaign. However, he hasn't exploded in terms of goal-scoring output in the way many would have expected. He scored the winner on Sunday night taking his goal total to 15 this season. For a first campaign in a completely new country, it's a fairly decent return on the investment. However, given the price of the transfer, perhaps fireworks were expected. He only has 10 League goals this season. However, we are seeing the growth and the development of Roma's striker. The Ukrainian is not going anywhere and I feel is only getting warmed up in Italian football. It is true that he needs to be playing better and should be producing in terms of goals at a higher Cliff however The way he has performed during the second half of the season gives us plenty of reason to believe he can take an even bigger step next year. It is taking him time to develop in a new league with a different style of football. However, he has shown his qualities along the way. 15 goals and three assists this season In 39 matches. However, his lack of a goal-segoing output, at least at a higher level could be attributed to a few different variables. Has he missed some chances this season in which he should have scored Absolutely. Has he been given the service that has allowed him to score between 20 and 25 goals not. Although Roma has some nice pieces in Midfield. They are not of a creative variety. Kone is a box-to-box midfielder. However, a lot of his qualities are in the defensive area. Paredes is a holding midfielder, Cristante is a holding midfielder, and Niccolò Pisilli is a center Midfield who does have the ability to push the ball forward, but he's still fairly young. Lorenzo Pellegrini is an attacking midfielder, however, he has been in and out of the squad this season so he's not playing in the same team with the Ukrainian week in and week out. The other attacking pieces around him have been inconsistent in their own right. Such as Tommaso Baldanzi & Mathias Soule both of them have performed better lately. However, consistency is something they've lacked. Then Dybala who at his best has been excellent this campaign, but he was inconsistent during the first half of the season and had not scored that many goals. Roma does not possess a midfielder of the creative variety who has been able to facilitate the ball in his area consistently. Now the Ukrainian has work to do in his own right in terms of making his shot a little bit more clinical in front of goal of that nature. However, an incredibly solid creative midfielder hasn't helped him. All that being said, you look at what Roma paid the 38-odd million. In the long run. It will be worth it. However this season. It doesn't look amazing though. Does it 15 goals Three assists only 10 of those goals being in the league. However, he's adapting to a new environment and he's only now starting to click with it. When he is played, he has had some performances where he is invisible. However, there are plenty of performances in which he did not score where he was outstanding and did things that the stat sheet doesn't show up. The Match that comes to mind is the Derby victory against Lazio. Even though he didn't have a goal or an assist, the touches and his hold-up play were outstanding. The Ukrainian striker has a soft touch which Roma hasn't exactly been able to maximize as of yet. His overall performances have been solid and been good. He just needs to be finding the back of the net a little bit more consistently. A little more clinical finishing front of goal, although overall he's been pretty decent in that regard. So yes, to a certain degree, he is responsible for some of it. However, not having the right mesh in Midfield in terms of a creative piece has also contributed to it. Roma in the summer, one of their key objectives is going to be bringing in a creative midfielder to pair him with. However, Artem Dovbyk if you watch the games. You will see that he has been fairly consistent and very effective very often. We would just as a fan base like to see him score a little bit more consistently. However, that time will come. Dzeko scored 10 goals in his first season. In his second season, he scored 39. The Bosnian made a big jump in his second season and so will the ukrainian. Artem Dovbyk is an outstanding player that really has all the capabilities to become one of Italy's. Best, strikers. There are also still nine matches to go. He could score another four or five goals to end the season on a high note. Not only is he better than advertised, but he's growing into his role as he's really starting to get the hang of it in Italian football. He's adapted to everything and we're just seeing the start of what he's capable of. Sunday night with another example of that. Although he has had other chances that maybe he should have scored earlier. He scored the winner added to his goal total, but most importantly provided the touch that pushed the unbeaten run to 13 matches. He has scored the winning or tying goal in plenty of matches this season. Even though his numbers have not been completely outrageous, he is still growing and developing into exactly what Roma paid for.

This type of Performance won't cut it when it counts

Roma may have come away with the 1-0 victory. As we know, it stretched the unbeaten run in the league to 13 matches. However, this was anything but a pretty performance. One could categorize it as a gritty ugly but necessary performance. Well, that is technically true. Roma must highlight not the good aspects of the performance, but the bad ones. Mile Svilar made two or three ridiculous saves that kept them in it the whole time. It was a very narrow win but not one of those performances in which Roma should Pat themselves on the back. This sort of display can work against Cagliari. It won't be as so against some of the more Superior matchups they have on the schedule to end the season. Still on the schedule, Roma have Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina, Atalanta, Inter Milan, AC Milan. While I believe that Roma can come out of this stretch fairly positively after the way they have played coming into the new year. Against those types of teams, a stronger type of performance would required. They had 61% possession. 87% of their passes were accurate. Yet they created only two goals scoring opportunities, one goal and one missed chance. Meanwhile, Cagliari created three big chances. Mile Svilar had to rescue them from all three of them. To make matters worse. Dybala was subbed on and had to leave because of an injury to his back. They can get away with this type of performance against A-Team in the bottom five of the table. When they play the tougher competition, Roma cannot play like this. They must learn from this and figure out a way to put it all together more smoothly. It's not to suggest that Ranieri's substitutions weren't good enough, however ultimately In the end, Roma dominated the match from start to finish yet only ended the situation with one goal and one shot on Target. That's not going to fly against some of the more difficult opponents that Roma will play against in the coming weeks. It may have cut it tonight but it's not going to cut it when the level of competition steps up. Like it or not Roma right now is legitimately in a title Champions League race that we didn't even realize that they would be in. At this point. They honestly should not be in one, but here we are. Now that Roma has this very unique opportunity sitting in front of them, they have to make into account that a performance like this is not going to get the job done against the teams that I listed there. There's no reason to be truly concerned surrounding this one-off performance, but Roma must find a way to put it together much more than they did on Sunday. One shot on Target and one goal. They have one more performance against a team at the bottom. Five Roma should dominate this and test the goalkeeper significantly. They have to take advantage of every point they can grab before things turn dark and bigger challenges Sid in front of them.