It was overshadowed by a range of dramatic events and demonstrations of unrest this week, but Roma had a game to play on Sunday, and they won it.
After failing to win any of their first four league games for only the fourth time in their history, Roma got up and running by beating Udinese on matchday five – in circumstances that almost no one could have predicted even a week earlier.
It felt like the fabric of Roma itself had been ripped apart in the run up to this game, in the wake of the dramatic sacking of Daniele De Rossi on Wednesday not even three months into a three-year contract. This being Ivan Juric’s first match in charge was almost an afterthought as fans vented their frustration at the Friedkin Group’s handling of recent affairs, while players such as Lorenzo Pellegrini and Bryan Cristante were booed for the consequences of their recent subpar performances.
Yet most of Juric’s first Roma lineup performed effectively as this unforeseen new era began. The headline performance was by Artem Dovbyk, the big-money new striker whose start to life in Serie A was somewhat lukewarm, but who can now say he scored the last goal of De Rossi’s reign and the first of Juric’s. His strike to open the scoring against Udinese was a powerful one across goal, made to look easier than it was after an encouraging example of his mobility, an aspect to his game that fans may already have been starting to have questions about.
Moreover, Dovbyk helped set up the penalty Paulo Dybala won and converted for Roma’s second goal, and provided the assist for Tommaso Baldanzi for their third. It seems Edin Dzeko had seen into the future when he promised Dovbyk his breakthrough was on the horizon in a recent Instagram comment.
As stated, there was a link-up between Dovbyk and Dybala for Roma’s second goal. As the game progressed, Dybala began to come more central in support of Dovbyk, which is exactly how the Lupi will function best. Dybala will be at his most effective in pockets of space around Roma’s target man; their connection hasn’t fully clicked yet, but some progress is starting to be made towards a crucial component of the team’s attacking structure.
Tactically, Juric set Roma up in a similar way to how De Rossi had for his last game, the late draw against Genoa, which given the limited time involved since the managerial change made sense for the time being. As expected, it was a back three, but including Angelino, who on occasion could move wider and further forward to provide some crosses. It will take time for Roma to refine how they move around the pitch, especially as they receive newly tweaked instructions and integrate new centre-backs Mario Hermoso and Mats Hummels further, but things seemed to be in sync against Udinese.
It is now a question of building up a run of form and attempting to fit Roma’s best players together. Manu Kone came on as a sub, Hummels remained on the bench, and Matias Soule is yet to nail down a starting place, but the next few weeks will give more insight into what this rapidly evolving side is really going to turn out like.
The work is only just beginning.
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