Four Things We Learned: Finishing the year with a flourish

Roma round out 2019 in style

Roma finished off 2019 in style by emphatically brushing aside Fiorentina 4-1 at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, in what was one of their finest showings since Paulo Fonseca took over the managerial reins.

Facing off with Vincenzo Montella's Fiorentina, who had grabbed a point against Inter Milan the previous weekend, the Giallorossi persistently found ways to create chances through their tactical setup and individual quality - while also largely remaining solid at the back.

On a night where Roma had four separate scorers in Edin Dzeko, Aleksandar Kolarov, Lorenzo Pellegrini and Nicolo Zaniolo, plus reinforced their place in the top four, Paulo Fonseca was full of praise for his players.

"I must say I'm very pleased with this performance," Fonseca stated.

"It was a very important victory and we played well. Our preparations were good and we put everything we'd planned into practice. It's not easy to come here, especially considering they've had some good results against top teams like Inter, Juve and Atalanta, but we managed to produce a fantastic display this evening."

Pellegrini's quality comes to the fore

A key driving force for Roma throughout, Pellegrini's performance was full of class, intelligence and technical quality, as he wreaked havoc against La Viola. So aware of his surroundings due to his head scanning and reading of the play, his clever movement served as a formidable foundation from which to undertake his work.

Doing a top job of receiving between the lines, dropping into midfield to connect attacks, drifting wide, running in behind or rotating with his teammates, his aptitude in this regard saw him thrive.

To focus on his interchanges with his teammates, these only enhanced his threat, as he would smartly switch with Zaniolo to receive in wider areas where he had more time on the ball and occupied the striking forward role when Dzeko dropped deep.

Parlaying his strong understanding with his colleagues into his individual space-finding prowess, there were so many examples of his quality here, including in the lead up to his goal, where he received possession in an ideal forward facing body posture to surge upfield before finishing home calmly after combining with Dzeko.

Also stamping his mark with some trademark driving runs and killer passes, his ability to unlock and unbalance his opposition in a variety of ways from his trequartista slot was a joy to watch.

Roma overload midfield smartly

Up against Fiorentina's three-man midfield, one of the methods devised by Fonseca to bypass them was by getting his wingers to drop deep to create key overloads whenever Roma were building out from the back.

Due to Fiorentina's midfield trio being quite narrow and their wingbacks not always willing to track Roma's wingers deep because of the threat of Roma's fullbacks, the away side constantly generated 4v3 overloads to progress.

With a mix of Diego Perotti, Zaniolo, Jordan Veretout, Amadou Diawara and Pellegrini all moving to generate superiorities for the Giallorossi, Fiorentina struggled to contain the fluid Roma.

Continually able to cause marking dilemmas on who should mark who or when they should apply pressure, this tactic bore fruit on many occasions to propel Roma upfield into the attacking third.

Stopping dangerous midfield runners

Recognising what a dangerous weapon the blistering forward runs of Fiorentina's two No. 8s, Gaetano Castrovilli and Erick Pulgar, can be, Roma did a fine job of limiting the effectiveness of this strategy.

Critical to their success was how well Roma's central midfielders and central defenders communicated with each other. This ensured they could crossover the marking duties of the runner smoothly so they couldn't burst in behind unmarked, which they've done so many times this campaign.

Another key aspect was when a defender left his station to pick up a runner in the channel that one of Diawara or Veretout would drop back into central defence to give the backline structural stability again.

Aside from getting their marking mechanics spot on, it was also crucial how well they timed their tackles, with Roma's efforts in stopping this potentially damaging outlet for Fiorentina proving vital in blunting the home side's attack.