The Paulo Dybala era at Roma has begun in style. Roma dominated Salernitana all night long but had the WORST shooting luck of all time as they were only able to win 1-0.
This game was never close, even though the possession stats actually favored Salernitana and they only conceded one goal. With 52% of the ball, Salernitana got “Jose Mourinhoed” as Roma counterattacked the life out of the Campanian club and never gave them a chance to build up a meaningful attack.
As for the goals, Roma easily could have scored an additional six goals as the new attacking trio of Tammy Abraham, Nicolo Zaniolo, and Paulo Dybala looked extremely dangerous. I think Zaniolo had seven or eight CLEAR CUT chances that he just missed alone. And that isn’t even an exaggeration.
Roma was slicing through Salernitana’s defense like a hot knife through butter all game long. That was how good this new attack looked.
Funnily enough, however, it was actually Bryan Cristante who scored the only goal of the game from deflected 18-yard shot. Even though it was deflected, it was still a very nice strike that curved (mostly because of the deflection) just out of the Salernitana keeper’s reach to give Roma the win away in Campania.
Still, if that goal didn’t go in, there would have been another A+ chance that either Abraham, Zaniolo, or Dybala would have put away. There was ever only going to be one winner coming out of this game, and that was Roma.
Speaking of Dybala, I was a little skeptical at first of Roma bringing in the former Juve attacker as had just gone through two seasons of decline and injury at Juventus. Normally, that is a massive red flag as to how the remained of a player’s career is going to play out.
But I guess not for Dybala as he looked dynamic and dangerous. I know that it was only Salernitana, a team that is probably heading for relegation, but these are the kind of games that will define Dybala’s time in Rome.
If he had struggled, then there would be serious questions asked by the Roma faithful as to why they brought in an aging, declining playmaker. But, since he succeeded (at least in this game), every Roma fan now has their sights set on the Top-4.
And I don’t see why they can’t with this great result. It will be difficult beating out Juve, Napoli, and Atalanta for the 3rd and 4th place spots (I think AC Milan and Inter are the two obvious favorites to challenge for the title again, especially after their dominating wins this weekend), but difficult does not mean impossible.
If Tammy Abraham, Nicolo Zaniolo, and Paulo Dybala can figure out their finishing in the weeks to come, then this team has all the firepower in Italy to reclaim a long-desired Champions League place for next season.
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