Four Things We Learned: SPAL struggle to cope with shifting structure

Back to winning ways

Roma got back to winning ways with an assured 3-1 win over SPAL, who were forced to play the majority of the contest with 10 men following Felipe's early red card. Indeed, the win was the ideal preparation for the Giallorossi's crunch Champions League clash with Qarabag next week, a game they need to win to guarantee qualification to the next stage.

"We got our approach spot on today, both in terms of our preparation and our desire to claim the points. We need a repeat of that on Tuesday regardless of who plays," asserted Eusebio Di Francesco.

Other positives to be drawn came in the form of Lorenzo Pellegrini's first professional goal for his boyhood club, Edin Dzeko getting himself back on the scoresheet and Emerson Palmieri's return to action.

Wing defensive structure

Roma's ability to outnumber SPAL in wide areas provided them with an excellent foundation to not only win back possession but also to launch into many a lethal counter attack. As shown in the image below, the 6-on-4 overload created which is made possible by the supporting movements of Maxime Gonalons, Pellegrini and Dzeko to accompanying the left sided triumvirate of Aleksandar Kolarov, Stephan El Shaarawy and Kevin Strootman proves crucial.

After all, this puts Roma in an extremely advantageous position to force a turnover and immediately counter their disorganised and shorthanded adversaries.

The Dzeko-El Shaarawy relationship

The relationship between Dzeko and El Shaarawy continues to be an incisive element of Roma's offensive methodology, with the pair's complimentary movement wreaking havoc on SPAL this time out too. The way they performed smoothly executed positional rotations caused many headaches for the visitors, who struggled to cope with this aspect of their work throughout.

As illustrated in the graphic underneath, upon recognising El Shaarawy drop deep and centrally to receive, Dzeko immediately peels out wide. By doing so, Dzeko creates room for his teammate to dribble into, while also putting himself in a good area to be a viable passing option as SPAL have completely failed to track his clever movement.

Kolarov's astute runs

Kolarov's wonderful form continued in Roma's latest victory, with the Serbian contributing heavily yet again. With SPAL keen on covering central areas, Kolarov's precise forward runs effectively stretched out their opponents and ensured he could use his individual qualities with limited pressure on him.

Key to this was obviously the splendid timing of his runs and the fact they were on the blindside of his supposed tracker, but El Shaarawy's infield drifts were of equal importance too, with this manufacturing the essential vacant space needed for Kolarov to utilise in advanced areas.