Artem Dovbyk struck late on to give Roma their seventh consecutive Serie A victory, sending Lecce into crisis with a fifth straight defeat.
Claudio Ranieri’s men will be without Paulo Dybala for the rest of the season, but were also missing Zeki Celik, Devyne Rensch and Saud Abdulhamid too. Only Filip Marchwinski remained on the treatment table for the hosts, who wore special edition ‘vintage’ jerseys.
See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.
The visitors should’ve scored on nine minutes when Wladimiro Falcone and Frederic Guilbert did not communicate on a long ball, colliding with each other, but Angelino failed to make the most of it by somehow turning the finish wide of the totally empty net.
Thorir Helgason blasted just wide from the edge of the area after a Matias Soule giveaway and Soule’s curler was deflected after an Artem Dovbyk back-heel flick, then Wladimiro Falcone made an extraordinary reaction save one-on-one with Manu Kone, who had robbed Ylber Ramadani inside the penalty area.
Federico Gallo got down the left to sting Mile Svilar’s gloves, Angelino acrobatically getting the rebound clear before anyone else could pounce. Mats Hummels also did just enough to prevent Nikola Krstovic turning in the Guilbert cross at the near post.
Jesper Karlsson really should’ve done better on the counter-attack than his weak finish straight at Svilar, while Lorenzo Pellegrini fired over from a promising position.
Krstovic had an audacious lob from midfield that bounced just wide of Svilar’s goal, but Dovbyk’s effort took a nick off Kialonda Gaspar, allowing Falcone to parry from close range with an outstretched leg.
On the resulting corner, Dovbyk’s glancing header was turned in by Gianluca Mancini at the back post, but he was flagged offside, confirmed after a very long VAR review.
Alexis Saelemaekers was booked for dissent and will be suspended for the showdown with Juventus.
Roma finally broke the deadlock with 10 minutes left on the clock, as Dovbyk shrugged off Federico Baschirotto, cut inside Gaspar and drilled the left-foot finish through his legs into the near bottom corner from eight yards.
Dovbyk also forced a save out of Falcone on the Eldor Shomurodov lay-off moments later, pulling up with cramp, and Lameck Banda tested Svilar from the edge of the box.
Shomurodov should’ve made it 2-0 on 88 minutes, sweeping wide of the near post relatively undisturbed from an Angelino assist, then in stoppages his angled drive was kept out by Falcone’s outstretched leg.