Four things we learned from Roma's big win over Benevento

Strong form continues

Recording back-to-back wins and clean sheets in the space of five days has signaled an impressive return to form for AS Roma. The Giallorossi were just too good for a plucky Benevento side, as Eusebio Di Francesco's men once again showed their improvement under their new coach despite making more changes to the starting lineup.

"We’re pleased and we’re doing well, as our results have been showing recently,” Federico Fazio aptly noted after the match. “This team is making progress and you can see it."

Dzeko's movment

Edin Dzeko's intelligent and instinctive movement to find space for himself to work in was a constant feature of his performance. Aside from timing his movements perfectly to link midfield and attack, plus making crafty runs into the channels, his predatory movement inside the box was the real standout aspect of his work in this regard.

The towering Bosnian's first goal provided a perfect example too, where he expertly timed his run on the blindside of his opponents, which subsequently allowed him to venture in behind unmarked to coolly finish home.

Scoring a wonderfully well-placed second goal was undoubtedly a fitting way to cap off a super showing from the reigning Capocannoniere winner.

Overload to isolate

With Benevento defending in a narrow block, Roma did a fine job of finding ways around this tactic. Using the ‘overload to isolate’ principle was one of the ways in which they did so. On many occasions, Roma would purposefully target their build up towards the right-hand side of the pitch and force overloads here, thus enabling them to shift the opposition's defensive structure over to this sector of the pitch.

But once they'd successfully done this, they'd then often quickly switch the ball over to the opposite side to create a 1v1 or 2v1 isolation scenario for either Aleksandar Kolarov or Diego Perotti (sometimes both) to create advantageous isolation scenarios to use their strong dribbling skills, while Benevento still had their focus geared to the right.

Third-man runs

Another clever way Roma unlocked the Benevento defence came through their implementation of third-man runs. The image below offers a suitable illustration, where Bruno Peres and Kevin Strootman have briefly rotated positions, which now sees Peres occupy an infield position.

Then Strootman plays a one-two with Cengiz Under, which draws Benevento's two defensive players towards them. Peres immediately notices Raman Chibsah and Gianluca Di Chiara completely oriented towards the ball, leaving him as a free (or third) man, so he astutely embarks on a forward burst completely untracked, with this passage ultimately leading to Dzeko hitting the post with a stinging low shot.