Three takeaways from Serie A Matchday 8

Roma threw down the gauntlet to the rest of Serie A on Saturday, following up a 2-1 win over Inter Milan just before the international break with another statement of intent and a 3-1 victory away at Napoli.

This glorious result was just one of several intriguing results that took place on Matchday 8, as the new campaign slowly starts to mature.

Edin Dzeko bucks the striker trend

Besides Roma’s Bosnian – currently leading the capocannoniere charts with seven goals – none of the other high-scoring strikers in the league managed to add to their tally this weekend.

Milan managed to put three past Chievo without Carlos Bacca, while Gonzalo Higuain came off the bench for Juventus only after Paulo Dybala’s brace had secured all three points for the league leaders.

Mauro Icardi not only missed a penalty but managed to enrage the Inter ultras with a controversial passage in his biography, while Roma’s own defence prevented Jose Callejon from scoring his sixth goal of the season. Of all players with five or more goals, only Torino’s Andrea Belotti has not played this matchday, with his side’s game against Palermo yet to occur as of time of writing.

Nevertheless, this has been one weekend where defences managed to figure out, by and large, how to stop the league’s best hitmen – that is, if injury or rotation didn’t keep them off the pitch to begin with.

Worry starts to settle in for sides firing blanks

They say defence wins championships, so it’s perhaps easy to ignore the fact that the top four sides in the league have scored the most goals this season, and the bottom three sides have the three worst tally figures. The trend is clear.

Just above the relegation sides are Paulo Sousa’s Fiorentina, whose paltry six goals have the side in 14th and without a win in five matches. While they’ve had a tough run of matches - already having faced Roma, Juventus, and AC Milan - other sides have no such excuses. Bologna, Sampdoria, and Genoa are each averaging one goal per game or less, and all find themselves in the bottom half of the table.

The real concern for those teams is that it is goals scored rather than goals conceded that truly correlates with the league table; the four sides that have let in the fewest amount of goals sit 8th, 1st, 14th, and 18th.

To borrow (and modify) a phrase from the British: he who fires, wins.

The table has rarely been so tight

The current gap between Roma in second and Atalanta in 13th is a mere six points; over the next two weeks, a handful of losses could catapult a mid-table side into a Champions’ League spot or vice-versa.

The league’s competitive nature reared its head again this weekend – who fancied Cagliari to notch their fourth win in five by beating Inter at the San Siro? Or Lazio to need a 97th minute penalty to earn a home draw against Bologna?

Even Juventus left it to the second half and two set piece goals to knock over struggling Udinese after an uncharacteristic mistake from Gianluigi Buffon. We may be eight weeks in now, but the picture is hardly any clearer than when we first started.

So what does it all mean for Roma?

Roma find themselves in a good place this weekend after defeating Napoli, but victories for Milan and Juventus demonstrate that this is no time to rest on laurels. Luckily, with Dzeko in the best form he’s ever been for the club (seemingly in contrast to other strikers around the league), the side can feel confident that the points can keep coming with enough hard work and dedication.

After all, it’s the sides that score who are occupying the top of the table, and not even Roma’s injury situation can stand as enough of an excuse to not carry on after two consecutive victories over Champions’ League hopefuls.