The Talking Point: How we seized early control once more

The visitors had gone 316 minutes and three league games without scoring prior to making the trip to the capital but it took just four minutes and two seconds for Roma to undo all the Bianconeri’s previous hard work at the back.

Paulo Fonseca’s side flying out the traps should have come as no surprise to Udinese counterpart Luca Gotti, who surely prepared his team for an early onslaught considering Roma had scored a joint-highest eight league goals inside the first 15 minutes of matches in 2020-21 thus far.

But any work at the Stadio Friuli this week to try and combat their host’s fast start quickly went out the window as Jordan Veretout headed home Gianluca Mancini’s clipped cross to put Roma ahead inside five minutes.

It was yet more reward for Fonseca's style of football, with the Portuguese tactician clearly setting his team the task of immediately wresting control of games with relentless high pressing and rapid forward transitions in an attempt to catch their opponents cold.

A ninth league goal inside the first 15 minutes of their 22 matchdays shows they do just that every 2.4 matches, while Veretout’s penalty to make it 2-0 just over a quarter of a way in made it the eighth time this term that Roma have scored two or more first-half goals in Serie A.

One look at the stats at the end of the first quarter of an hour of the win over Udinese further highlights how Roma do it, as they registered three shots on goal to Udinese’s zero efforts, completed 22 more passes and 50 percent of their total 59 percent share of possession came from the middle of the pitch (31%) and in attacking areas (19%).

That perfectly highlights how Roma’s high line allows them to squeeze the game into central areas, while offering few options for their opponents to bypass their press.

In turn, this enables the likes of Veretout and Gonzalo Villar to dictate play in the centre of the park while Leonardo Spinazzola and Rick Karsdorp gallop into open space out wide, and the central attacking trio to not only lead the press high up the pitch but also have support in numbers when they do regain possession.

That Roma have finished so many early chances is testament to the quality of their players in front of goal and it means they have taken comfortable, often irreversible, leads into the break of 40 percent of their league fixtures.

This has been a major factor in delivering them into third-place with 16 games to go and the latest example will bring particular delight to Fonseca for his team’s clean sheet.

There have been instances this term of second-half capitulations and a switching off defensively, but there was no such relenting this time around.

As the 47-year-old said himself, it was "important not to concede", adding post-match that he was "very pleased" with his team's performance.

Fonseca said: "We started the game really well. We scored twice, we created lots of chances and then in the second half we managed the game well too."

If Roma can pair their clinical opening salvos with more shutouts then they will most likely be very happy with their season come the end of the campaign.