Roma 20/21 - the anti-Robinhood

A.S. Roma results against other top Serie A sides in 2020/21 season*:

v Juventus 2-2

@ Milan 3-3

@ Napoli 0-4

@ Atalanta 1-4

v Inter 2-2

@ Lazio 0-3

@ Juventus 0-2

v Milan 1-2

8 games played. 3 draws, 5 losses. 9 goals scored, 22 goals against.

In contrast, the other 16 games yield 13 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss. 39 goals scored, 15 goals against.

*All comps in Italy. Started accruing the stats and realized I'd also included cups, which is 4 games. Doesn't change much. Also, I'm not sure how the Spezia game in the cup is counted, given they lost 2-4 and were then disqualified anyway for making 6 subs.

So, why is this the case? What is it about Roma that they play well against the mid-table and poor sides, but can't beat the good teams? That's what I'll be exploring here.

Going through the data quickly, in league games, they're under-performing both xG and xGA. The goals against should be more worrying, because they've conceded 34 from an xGA of 26.5. Two factors play in to this. One is poor goalkeeping. Pau Lopez has not met expectations since his move from Betis, and Mirante has never been particularly good. The other reason is the style, and injuries in defense, which leads them to give up high quality chances. By that, I mean you'll often find other teams with numerous defenders in the box, while Roma get hit on the break or make mental errors in midfield/defense that lead to easy chances.

Another trend I noticed when checking out individual games is in big games they just don't create much. On average, xG wise, Roma create more against smaller teams than big teams. That's logical, but the discrepancy is more than just variance. Part of it I think is the system. Playing a back three, especially the 3-4-2-1 Fonseca sets up, works against bad teams that sit back, but the midfield gets overrun when the opposition comes to play. Roma actually "outplayed" Juve xG wise in both games, but lost 2-0 and drew 2-2. That again to me comes down to small margins. Take the latest Juve game; Roma created more, but not great chances, and conceded a low-percentage shot from Cristiano and an own goal. To be fair, the xG would have been even if Ibanez didn't try to intercept the pass, as it was going straight to Cristiano for an easy finish.

Expanding a bit on stats, I wanted to look at goalkeeping in terms of numbers instead of the eye test. Looking at post-shot expected goals against minus goals allowed, which is a long way of judging how good/lucky a keeper is, Roma are (expectedly) bottom half, at a -3 overall. Top in that metric is Cragno at Cagliari, possibly the best keeper that nobody talks about, and all of Juventus, Lazio, and Milan are top 5. I'm actually surprised to see Lazio there, because Reina is super old and has always been a "complete goalie" rather than an excellent "shot stopper". Maybe that's down to good defending in the box? Taking a look at the other box, I thought goals (and non-penalty goals) minus expected (non-penalty) goals would be interesting. No surprise, Roma aren't converting their chances. Atalanta and Napoli lead that statistic, which is kinda surprising to me because I feel like Napoli are wasteful, but stats would suggest otherwise. Fiorentina and Udinese are bottom, and joining Roma in the bottom half are Juventus and Milan. I'm not surprised with the two at the bottom or Juve, but Milan being there is interesting. It just doesn't seem Milan create much, but to be fair they've had like twice as many penalties as any other side in the league, so the xG is inflated. Yeah, more than double, actually, nearly 3x (15!, compared to 6 in second for pens won). I don't know how the hell they get so many penalties. You know, I think it might be down to the counter-attack, like Man United. They get teams super out of whack by winning the ball and busting a gut to get into the box quickly and directly, leaving defenders on their heels and committing fouls.

That paragraph was a long winded way of saying that the stats back what I see with the eye test. The other point to make is that Roma just doesn't have the quality in the squad to beat better sides. Inter and Juventus are well clear, and Napoli has a better squad as well. I'd say they're about level with Atalanta, Lazio, and Milan, so it only makes sense that they're at best looking to finish 4th in the table. If you're counting, that's 7 teams for 4 spots, and it's likely that Roma finish in a Europa League spot again if they can't beat any of the teams around them.

Last idea I had to explain this phenomenon was mentality. I looked at the Sevilla game in the Europa League knockouts last season, and it was pathetic. That same mentality (lack thereof) appears this season, at least to me. An interesting stat I found was xG and goals score based on the point in time of the match, with 6 intervals (three in first half, three in second). Roma "over-perform" in the first half and "under-perform" in the second, according to the stats. It could just be a simple correlation, or it could be an indication of "bottling it" in clutch periods of games. Another fun understat stat was when I looked at "game state" for Roma. When they're level, they score more than "expected" and are about right in terms of conceding, while any other time (up 1 or more, or trailing) they "under-perform". To be fair, most of the time the games are level (1000 minutes compared to <500 any other state), so that should probably be taken more seriously, just based on sample size. Just some interesting data I found.

So yeah, to recap, or a TL:DR even though this isn't that long, to me it comes down to simply not being able to beat the good teams. Be it tactically, personnel wise, or mentality, Roma just don't have it. That falls on the coach, the players, and the upper management, and it needs to change if the club wants to challenge again.