Roma thump four past Seagulls

Roma produced an excellent performance to continue the fine start they have made to life under Daniele De Rossi as they hammered Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion by four goals to nil in the Italian capital.

LINEUPS

ROMA XI: Svilar; Celik, Mancini, Ndicka, Spinazzola; Pellegrini*, Paredes, Cristante; Dybala, Lukaku, El Shaarawy

ROMA SUBS: Patricio, Boer, Llorente, Smalling, Karsdorp, Angelino, Sanches, Zalewski, Aouar, Bove, Baldanzi, Azmoun

BRIGHTON XI: Steele; Lamptey, Dunk*, Van Hecke, Igor Julio; Gilmour, Gross; Adingra, Enciso, Buonanotte; Welbeck

BRIGHTON SUBS: McGill, Verbruggen, Webster, Veltman, Estupinan, Peupion, Moder, Lallana, Baleba, Fati, Baker-Boaitey, Ferguson

The Action: An entertaining fiirst leg encounter in the last 16 of the Europa League began with Roma taking an early lead in the Italian capital through their in-form playmaker, Paulo Dybala.

Leandro Paredes launched a ball straight through a ropey Brighton back-line and Dybala latched onto it in behind before going round Jason Steele and slotting into an empty net.

Roma continued to put the pressure on their English counterparts and nearly doubled their lead mid-way through the half when Romelu Lukaku blazed a header over.

Brighton did have chances, though, mainly coming down the left-hand side with Simon Adingra causing many issues. The Ivorian caused havoc for Zeki Celik and had a cross rebound off the post before then putting in two excellent crosses for Danny Welbeck to head at goal but both of his efforts were well saved by Mile Svilar.

Then, just before half-time, the Romans did double their lead when another hopeful ball launched forward was mis-controlled by Seagulls skipper Lewis Dunk, allowing for Lukaku to burst through on goal and confidently hammer past Steele.

Half-time: Roma 2-0 Brighton

Brighton made a substitution at half-time as Ansu Fati was introduced and the on-loan Barcelona winger provided some interesting moments but generally lacked sharpness and composure as Brighton toiled for a way back into the game.

Their improvement was then emphatically ended by the Italians as Roma scored two goals in quick succession to make it an almighty hammering for Brighton.

First of all, Stephan El Shaarawy floated an in-swinging ball to the back post for Gianluca Mancini to poke past Steele with a VAR check pausing the game before confirming Mancini was indeed onside.

El Shaarawy was involved again as he assisted Bryan Cristante with a brilliant cross for the on-rushing Italian to head home at the end of a sweeping Roma counter-attack.

The rest of the match was fairly stop-start with Brighton appearing to go into damage limitation mode ahead of a crucial but potentially hopeless second-leg back at the AMEX Stadium next week.

The big picture: Roma have reached a European final in each of the last two seasons, winning the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2022 and then losing to Sevilla on penalties in the UEFA Europa League final last season.

They will be confident and hopeful of making it three in a row with one foot firmly in the quarter-finals. Brighton have enjoyed yet another impressive campaign, but their season may well be unravelling after FA Cup elimination last week, a thumping in Europe tonight and some shoddy form in the Premier League seeing them slip out of the top seven.

Man of the match: Bryan Cristante. Whilst both Dybala and Lukaku, as well as El Shaarawy, had major impacts on the game the tempo was controlled by Cristante in midfield. 

EVENTS

Kick-off

‘12 | GOAL: Dybala (1-0)

‘45 | GOAL: Lukaku (2-0)

Half-time

‘64 | GOAL: Mancini (3-0)

‘68 | GOAL: Cristante (4-0) 

Full-time