We have all the pre-match preamble you need as Roma travel to Fiorentina on Monday (kick-off: 20:45 CEST), switching their focus from reaching a European final to securing their place in Europe next year.

FIORENTINA

League position: 7th
Head coach: Vincenzo Italiano
Serie A top scorer: Dusan Vlahovic (17, now at Juventus)

RECENT FORM

FIORENTINA: W L L L L
ROMA: D L D D W

Going into Matchday 36, Fiorentina sit two places and three points back from Roma, meaning victory for the hosts would pull them level with their visitors while defeat could all-but end their hopes of qualifying for Europe next season.

Italiono’s side have struggled recently, losing four on the spin and scoring just once in the process, but should welcome back both Giacomo Bonaventura and Lucas Torreira in midfield as well as Alvaro Odriozola in defence.

As for the Giallorossi, they make the trip to Florence on the back of one of the club’s biggest nights in recent memory as they saw off Leicester in front of a stunning Stadio Olimpico crowd to reach the Europa Conference League final.

Victory in the showpiece will promote them to the Europa League next term but Jose Mourinho will want his side to qualify via the league’s fifth-place and finish above rivals Lazio in the process.

Possible Fiorentina line-up

(4-3-3)

Terracciano; Odriozola, Igor, Milenkovic, Biraghi; Duncan, Torreira, Bonaventura; Saponara, Cabral, Gonzalez

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
Nicolas Gonzalez

The Argentina international has had an impressive first season in Serie A and has been involved in four of his side’s last seven goals (two goals, two assists).

His six league provisions are a team-high, while his four top flight goals this term are just one back from the squad’s current highest-scoring player; holding midfielder Torreira.

That reflects just how much Fiorentina have struggled to replace the goals of Dusan Vlahovic since his winter switch to Juve, with Italiano’s team scoring just 20 times since the turn of the year - compared to 34 efforts over the first half of the campaign.

Gonzalez will surely continue to play his part over the final three games of the season and could do with some support from centre-forwards Arthur Cabal (two) and Krzysztof Piatek (three), who have just five Serie A goals between them.

MATCH STATS

Having lost all three of their previous league matches, Fiorentina are currently enduring their worst run of consecutive defeats since December 2019.

Fiorentina (336) and Roma (346) have faced the fewest number of shots in the top flight so far this season.

Roma have won each of the last five Serie A meetings between these two sides and could become the first team to chalk up six successive top flight victories over Fiorentina since AC Milan won seven on the bounce between 2008 and 2011.

Adding to their dominance in this fixture, the Giallorossi have lost just one of their last nine trips to the Artemio (W6, D2, L1).

PLAYER STATS

• Piatek has scored two goals in three Serie A matches against Roma, with both of those coming at the Olimpico and he is one goal away from becoming just the fourth Pole to score 30 or more goals in the Italian top-flight. Arkadiusz Milik (38), Piotr Zielinski (35) and Roma great Zbigniew Boniek (31) are the three ahead of Piatek.
  
• Tammy Abraham is one goal away from levelling Gerald Hitchens’ 16 goal return for Inter Milan in 1961-62 that stands as the best single-season scoring of any English player in Serie A history.
  
• Abraham, Mourinho, Rui Patricio, Eldor Shomurodov and Matias Vina all made their Serie A bows for Roma in the reverse fixture as they kicked off the campaign with a 3-1 win.
  
• Jordan Veretout may have made his debut for Fiorentina but he has also scored four times against his old club - a joint-record for the Frenchman against a single team in Serie A, alongside his quartet of goals against Lazio.

WHAT THEY SAID

“I wanted to see a different side after the last two games and we saw it. We reacted, especially in terms of quality. I think we played at the level of Milan, especially in the first half. At the moment, every mistake we make is decisive. We struggle to get goals up front right now."

- Italiano after the 1-0 defeat to AC Milan last time out