LAZIO

League position: 8th
Head coach: Simone Inzaghi
Serie A top-scorer: Ciro Immobile (11)

RECENT FORM

Lazio: W L D W W
Roma: L W W W D

Both teams go into the derby with three wins, one draw and a loss from their last five in the league. Roma are unbeaten in four and the nominal hosts have won each of their last two.

Lazio have scored in each of their last 13 league games, while Roma have scored 18 in their last seven which would suggest there are goals in this, the first edition of the Derby della Capitale in 2020-21.

Strengthening that impending notion of goals - or potentially laying down the commentator’s curse - is Roma’s Expected Goals return of 37.3 so far this season; the most of any team in the league.

No side has won more top-flight games than the Giallorossi since November (W8), and Roma have the league’s best home record so far this term (21 points), compared to Lazio’s nine points at the Olimpico, which ranks them as the ninth-worst team on home soil in Serie A.

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
Ciro Immobile

They may be very different players in terms of style, but Immobile boasts the same talismanic traits as Roma skipper Edin Dzeko when it comes to leading his team from the front.

Last year’s Capocannoniere winner has 11 goals from 15 Serie A appearances already, making him the only player to have reached double figures in each of the last five seasons.

Since recovering from coronavirus in November, Immobile has bagged 12 goals from 13 games in all competitions and he had scored in five consecutive Serie A matches until he drew a blank in Lazio’s 2-0 win over Parma last time out.

Immobile - who is expected to start alongside renaissance man Felipe Caicedo in attack - has scored four times in 11 league appearances against Roma in his career, but has only ended up on the winning side once.

MATCH STATS

Friday night will be derby number 153 for these two in Serie A - a fixture that the Giallorossi have edged down the years, with 54 Roma wins to Lazio’s 38.

Each of last year’s fixtures produced 1-1 draws, the most common result in this game’s history having ended up one apiece 29 times out of the 60 total draws.

Albeit on shared soil, Lazio have lost 25 home derbies - the highest number of Olimpico defeats they have suffered against any team in Serie A, bar Juventus (33).

Curiously, this will be the first time these two storied rivals have met on a Friday, completing the set for having met in the league on every day of the week throughout the years of their existence.

As you would expect in the heat of such a fierce battle, Roma-Lazio games have produced the most red cards in Serie A history (34) and the highest number of penalties (18) of any game since Opta started collecting such data in 2004-05.

PLAYER STATS

• Among goalkeepers with at least five appearances this term, only Marco Silvestri (75%) boasts a better save percentage than Pepe Reina (74%) and Pau Lopez (73%).
  
• Henrikh Mkhitaryan (8) is the league’s highest assist-maker, while Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (5) is Lazio’s best provider.
  
• Roma and Ligue 1 leaders Lyon are the only two teams in Europe’s five major leagues with three players on seven goals or more; Dzeko, Mkhitaryan and Jordan Veretout.
  
• If Dzeko were to find the back of the net on Friday, he would become only the sixth Roma player to score in at least four different league derbies, with Amedeo Amadei, Dino Da Costa, Marco Delvecchio, Francesco Totti and Rodolfo Volk the others.
  
• Both Mkhitaryan and Chris Smalling will make their 50th appearances in all competitions for Roma if they feature on Friday.

WHAT THEY SAID

“We all know what the derby represents here in Rome. Both teams take risks. I saw in the eyes of the players, that they are aware of what’s at stake in this unusual derby, one without fans. But they will be there in their heart, the same hearts that we should leave out there on the pitch.

“Roma are an excellent team and have a coach that I respect a lot. But I think my Lazio are certainly their equals. We must compete, be aggressive and determined. We know we can’t make mistakes, there must be no mistakes.”

- Lazio coach Simone Inzaghi