Although the attention may be starting to drift to a European semi-final, Roma have a Serie A game – and significant one – on which to focus on Saturday.
Inter Milan will be hosting their former boss Jose Mourinho and his Roma squad in a battle between two sides with differing ambitions for the rest of the season.
Inter are aiming to successfully defend their Scudetto, but it could go down to the wire. Roma, meanwhile, want to win the Europa Conference League, but also have fifth place in Serie A in their sights to give them another route back into a higher level of continental competition.
There are five games of the league season remaining, with this certainly the toughest for Roma. Indeed, the reverse league fixture was a 3-0 defeat in December and their subsequent meeting in the Coppa Italia ended 2-0 in Inter’s favour in February.
That remains Roma’s most recent domestic defeat, though. Their form in Serie A has been strong recently, with their last loss in the league coming back in January.
Making things harder this time, though, will be the absences of Bryan Cristante and Nicolo Zaniolo – two regular starters for Mourinho. Jordan Veretout has been tipped for a first league start since February as one of the replacements.
At the spear of each side there will once again be a focus on Tammy Abraham and his Roma predecessor Edin Dzeko. Abraham needs one more goal to set the record for the highest-scoring debut season as a Roma player, while Dzeko has scored both times he has featured against his former club since his summer move.
There will be plenty of subplots as always between these two sides – including the appointment of a Milan-born referee this time – but the overarching important theme is who will claim the points they need to strive towards their respective targets.
Answers will arrive after the game kicks off at 5pm UK time. It will be shown live on BT Sport 3, but only from 5:15.
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