Juventus 1-0 Roma: Kean's header secures victory for The Old Lady| All Football

Juventus 1-0 Roma: Kean's header secures four straight win for The Old Lady

2021/2022 Serie A

1-0

Match Report

Juventus earned a chaotic 1-0 victory over Roma with Moise Kean’s bizarre goal and Wojciech Szczesny saving Jordan Veretout’s penalty after some controversial refereeing.

The Bianconeri were forced to do without Paulo Dybala, Matthijs de Ligt and COVID-positive Adrien Rabiot, while Alvaro Morata was only fit for the bench and Alex Sandro had jetlag after international duty. Tammy Abraham recovered from an ankle sprain he sustained playing for England, but Leonardo Spinazzola and Chris Smalling were injured.

It was an aggressive start from the visitors, Wojciech Szczesny palming a Gianluca Mancini header out from under the bar on Lorenzo Pellegrini’s free kick.

However, Juve took the lead with their first real chance, as Mattia De Sciglio whipped in a fantastic cross from the left with Rodrigo Bentancur’s header going in off the back of Moise Kean’s head, the players lining up to meet it from six yards.

There was even more bad luck for Roma, as Nicolò Zaniolo landed awkwardly and went off with a knee injury, largely as a precaution.

Just before half-time, there were chaotic scenes. Abraham ran into the box and it fell to Henrikh Mkhitaryan, brought down by Szczesny for a penalty. Abraham did put the ball into the net on the rebound, but Daniele Orsato had already blown the whistle. Had he waited a couple of seconds and played the advantage to see what happened, it would’ve been an equaliser. However, Mkhitaryan also fell onto the ball with his hand, knocking it back into the path of Abraham, so that could’ve been considered handball and play brought back to the penalty foul anyway.

Jordan Veretout stepped up and had his penalty saved by Szczesny. It was the first time, at the 14th attempt, that Veretout had failed to convert a penalty for Roma.

Straight after the restart, Federico Bernardeschi’s sensational over-head kick was beaten away by Rui Patricio, Kean unable to turn in the rebound.

Roma had more penalty appeals waved away for a coming together between Lorenzo Pellegrini and Giorgio Chiellini, while Bernardeschi and Veretout both flashed efforts inches wide from distance.

Chiellini made another decisive block on Matias Vina, who had turned Danilo to dribble into the box.