Recent Play Details

4% Roma (12:00 ET): I’ll get into this further in the other writeup, but the top of the Serie A table has received a serious shakeup with the situation over at Juventus. This opens the door for Roma, a side already due for some positive regression, to burst into the top four. As I’ve previously discussed, no side in any of Europe’s “Big 5” leagues has a wider discrepancy between expected and actual goals than does Roma (-11.9). That’s even after an unbeaten start to 2023 (three wins and draw) with three clean sheets. 

This fixture at Spezia is precisely what Roma needs to continue its ascent. No Serie A side has earned more points this season against bottom half opponents than Roma, who is level in that department (25 points) with Napoli and Inter. Furthermore, Roma are undefeated in their L6 away matches and have NEVER been beaten by Spezia in top flight competition. Looking back at this four-match unbeaten streak in 2023, all three Roma wins have been against teams currently ninth or lower in the table and there have been ZERO goals conceded. 

I mentioned earlier that Roma is due for some positive regression in the goal scoring department. They’ve now scored twice in each of their last two league games. I look at this fixture as yet another opportunity to “get right” with Spezia being third worst in Serie A in xGA (expected goals allowed). I cannot see a third consecutive league match with no goals allowed for Spezia (they conceded five times to Atalanta in Thursday’s Coppa Italia exit) and their five-match unbeaten run in the league (which includes three draws) is also well overdue to end (lost xG battle in three of the five). On the flip side, Spezia is also fourth worst in xG (expected goals), so I’m not expecting much offensive firepower here from the Ligurians. Roma gets all three points here. 4% Roma (Play to -165)