HELLAS VERONA

League position: 8th
Head coach: Ivan Juric
Serie A top-scorer: Mattia Zaccagni (5)

RECENT FORM

Roma: W D L L W
Verona: W D W L W

Dramatic victory over Spezia last time out means Roma remain the only unbeaten team at home in Serie A, with Paulo Fonseca's side winning seven and drawing three more from 10 games at the Olimpico this term.

They have also picked up the highest amount of points on home soil (24), while no side has scored more than their 25 goals as hosts.

As for Verona, they've won three of their last six away games in the league (W3, D2, L1), including a 2-1 victory over Lazio the last time they were in the capital on 12 December.

Juric's team also closed out the first half of the season alongside Juventus with the best defensive record in the league, having conceded just 18 times in their opening 19 matches.

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
Mattia Zaccagni

While Verona have been frugal at the back, they have not quite hit their straps going forward and that is why Kevin Lasagna was this week brought to the club from Udinese.

Juric will be hoping Lasagna can add to their side's potency going forward, something that has been hindered by injury and inconsistency among Andrea Favalli, Nikola Kalinic and Eddie Salcedo - who have managed just three Serie A goals between them.

Attacking midfielder Zaccagni has picked up the slack thus far, scoring five times in the league and providing a further five assists for his teammates.

He scored one and laid on another in the win over Napoli last week, taking his tally to two goals and three assists from his last five games.

MATCH STATS

Roma have won four of their last five Serie A meetings against Verona, with the only exception being the 0-3 result awarded in the reverse fixture that ended 0-0 on the night.

That match ended a run of 22 successive meetings with Verona that Roma found the back of the net in.

The Giallorossi are unbeaten in their last 23 home matches in the league against Verona (W18, D5), which is their longest current unbeaten run at the Olimpico since the 1973-74 campaign.

There have been a total of 59 previous editions of this fixture in the Italian top-flight, with Roma winning 30 times, drawing 19 more matches and losing on just 10 occasions.

PLAYER STATS

• Marash Kumbulla this season became the first player born in the 2000s to score Serie A goals for both Verona and Roma.
  
• Borja Mayoral has scored five goals in his three league starts and bagged two braces from those three games.
  
• The fixture's record scorer is Francesco Totti (5), while Gabriel Batistuta (4) sits second on the list.
  
• Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zaccagni are the only two players in the league with at least five goals and five assists to their name.
  
• Nikola Kalinic played 15 times on-loan at Roma last season and scored five goals in the process, while Verona teammate Mert Cetin made his Serie A debut with the Giallorossi - also last term - and featured six times for the club before making the move to the Gialloblu.

WHAT THEY SAID

"Let's not joke around here. Roma are third ahead of Napoli, Atalanta, Lazio and Juve. We certainly cannot speak of a team in difficulty. They have many talented players, and for a certain period of the season they played the best football in Italy We play a top-level team with great quality and freshness.

"[Lasagna] can play both alone and with Kalinic, I don't see him as only a lone striker. Can he make his debut as a starter already against Roma? Yes, and one of the two will start. Physically he is fine, he has been playing recently, so he's ready to go from the first minute."

- Verona coach Ivan Juric