JUVENTUS

League position: 8th
Head coach: Massimiliano Allegri
Serie A top-scorer: Paulo Dybala (2)

RECENT FORM

Juventus: D W W W W
Roma: L W L W W

After a slow start to the 2021-22 campaign, the Old Lady have come to life in recent weeks, chalking up four straight victories in all competitions.

The latest was a 1-0 win at city rivals Torino prior to the international break, and both Paulo Dybala and Arthur Melo could feature following their respective recent injuries.

Even with that resurgence, Juve trail Jose Mourinho’s men by four points after Roma disposed of Empoli on Matchday 7.

The Giallorossi could leapfrog champions Inter Milan into third place if they beat their hosts and Inter slip up in the capital on Saturday.

Possible Juventus line-up

(4-4-2)

Szczesny; Danilo, Chiellini, Bonucci, Sandro; Cuadrado, Locatelli, Bentancur, Bernardeschi; Chiesa, Kean

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
Federico Chiesa

One of Italy’s star men as the Azzurri became European champions in the summer, Chiesa has so far found himself playing up front and on both flanks this term.

It’s through the middle that the 23-year-old has operated most recently and he is expected to do so again if Dybala can only make it to the bench.

Chiesa teed up Manuel Locatelli’s late winner against Torino, and he has been developing a knack for deciding games in recent weeks.

He found the back of the net in Juve’s come-from-behind victory at Spezia and also hit the only goal of the game in their Champions League win over Chelsea.

Chiesa has, however, never scored against Roma and his six-game barren spell means that - bar Juventus - the Giallorossi are the team against which he has played the most Serie A games without scoring.

MATCH STATS

With three successive top flight victories, Juve are going in search of four consecutive wins in the competition for the first time since July 2020.

Juventus have conceded goals in each of their first three home matches in Serie A this term and if they cannot keep a clean sheet against Roma, it would be only the second time they have gone without one across the first four matchdays of a Serie A campaign in their last 36 seasons.

They may have won the last meeting between the two in February, but Juventus have not picked up two consecutive wins against Roma in Serie A since 2016.

Only Napoli (12) and Inter (10) have scored more away league goals than the Giallorossi (8) so far in 2021-22, while Juve have managed just four home goals in Serie A.

PLAYER STATS

• With seven wins from 20 meetings, Allegri’s lowest win percentage against teams he has faced more than three times in Serie A comes against Roma (35%).
  
• Mourinho, meanwhile, has lost just once to Juve in Serie A and has two wins and a draw from his other three games against the record champions in Italy’s top-flight.
  
• Roma boss Mourinho also has the personal edge over old rival Allegri from eight previous head-to-heads between the two iconic coaches (W4, D2, L2).
  
• Jordan Veretout has scored twice passed Juventus in Serie A and only two French players in the history of the competition have scored three or more goals against the Bianconeri; Nestor Combin and Cyril Thereau.
  
• Lorenzo Pellegrini is already on four league goals this season and the Italy midfielder has seven goals plus two assists in all competitions after 10 matches.

WHAT THEY SAID

"We need to improve a bit in our play in general: in today's match in the first half we gave away the ball too much. In the second half Torino dropped a bit, we moved the ball around more and, when you play against a team set up in this way, the more you move the more you break down the structure they have."

- Juventus coach, Max Allegri, after the 1-0 win over Torino