SAMPDORIA

League position: 9th
Head coach: Claudio Ranieri
Serie A top-scorer: Fabio Quagliarella (11)

RECENT FORM

Sampdoria: D L W W L
Roma: D L D L L

La Samp’s back-to-back league wins were halted by a 1-0 defeat at Sassuolo last time out, but former Roma boss Ranieri’s side are sitting fairly comfortably in the top half.

They will be delighted that there is no threat of relegation hanging over their heads as it did for large parts of last season and that a strong end to the season will be something to build on next term.

The Giallorossi, meanwhile, have slipped to seventh due to a run of three games without a league victory (D1, L2) and the 6-2 Europa League semi-final first leg defeat in Manchester on Thursday will still be sore.

Now six points back from sixth-placed rivals Lazio, Paulo Fonseca’s side need to start addressing their slump in order to enhance their chances of European football for next season - and build some momentum towards what is looking like a big Derby della Capitale showdown on the penultimate day of the campaign.

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
Manolo Gabbiadini

Having missed large chunks of the season through injury, Gabbiadini has been in superb form recently and contributed either a goal or an assist in each of Sampdoria’s last three victories.

Since March, Gabbiadini has scored twice and provided two assists and his four goal involvements are the most of any player in the league since the start of last month.

Top-scoring captain Quagliarella remains an injury doubt having sat out the defeat to Sassuolo, which places even greater importance on Gabbiadini to continue driving his side forward in attack.

The 29-year-old will be incentivised by a potential late run at a spot in the Azzurri’s European Championship squad this summer and a good performance against Roma will only serve to help his cause.

MATCH STATS

Gabbiadini is the hosts' only player to have scored in any of the last four meetings between these two sides in Serie A, and Sampdoria have failed to score in three of the previous four games against Roma.

Ranieri's men have also lost seven of their last eight top flight matches at the Luigi Ferraris against teams in the top seven at the start of the matchday - the only exception being a 2-1 win over Inter in January.

As for the visitors, Roma are unbeaten in five league fixtures against Sampdoria (W4, D1), which is the same number of wins they had recorded in their previous 12 meetings.

The Giallorossi have also not tasted defeat in any of their last seven trips to the Ferraris on league duty (W3, D4) - against both Sampdoria and Genoa.

PLAYER STATS

• Keita Balde is in line to make his 200th appearance across Europe's top-five leagues.
  
• Jordan Veretout has scored all of his last five Serie A goals at home and his last in the league game away from home was back in December 2020 against Bologna.
  
• Lorenzo Pellegrini covers - on average - 10.532 km per game, the most of any player in the Roma team and one of four that average over 10,000 km each matchday alongside Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Gianluca Mancini and Roger Ibanez.
  
• Edin Dzeko has scored in each of his previous two appearances against Sampdoria, hitting three goals in the process.

WHAT THEY SAID

"I didn't expect such a result. [Roma] were playing very well, then it went as it went ... We will face a Rome eager for redemption."

- Sampdoria coach Ranieri, on Roma's UEL loss to United