Gasperini's Goal Machine Rolls On: Unbeaten Roma Hit Sassuolo for Three to Go Second

There is something quietly relentless about this Roma side. They do not blow teams away in a single furious burst, and they do not need to. They arrive, they take control, they score, and by the time the opposition has worked out what happened, the points are gone. Sassuolo found that out at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday, beaten 3-0 by a team that now looks like a genuine title contender rather than an early-season curiosity.

Gian Piero Gasperini's men have made a habit of this. Eleven league games into the season they are still unbeaten, and this win lifted them to second in the table on 27 points, one behind leaders Lazio and two clear of Inter in third. The two Rome clubs sit at the top of Italian football together, and the Scudetto has not been back in the capital since Roma won it in 2001, a year after Lazio's last triumph. That drought is starting to feel less like history and more like a target.

Sassuolo, to their credit, held out for 27 minutes. Then Mario Hermoso decided to stop waiting. The defender drove forward towards the area, saw his attempted pass to Donyell Malen intercepted, and simply gathered the loose ball himself, took a touch to open up the angle, and smashed it into the roof of the net. It was a centre-back's goal in every sense: direct, forceful, and utterly without apology.

Three minutes later the game was effectively over. Malen let fly from distance, his shot took a touch off a Sassuolo defender, and Sebastian Walukiewicz could only turn the ball into his own net. Two goals in three minutes, and a side that had shipped ten goals in its previous two matches was staring at another long afternoon.

Sassuolo's goalkeeper Arijanet Muric deserves a mention for keeping the scoreline respectable before the break, saving well from Leonardo Balerdi and Matias Soulé. But there was no rescue coming. Rodrigo Mora's goal in the 58th minute put the result beyond doubt, and from there Roma were content to manage the game, keep the ball, and let the clock do its work.

The numbers tell the story of the season so far. Roma have scored 31 goals in 11 league games, more than anyone else in Serie A. Sassuolo, meanwhile, have conceded 29, the worst defensive record in the division, and they came into this one sitting just a place and a point above the relegation zone. It was a mismatch on paper, and it played out that way on the grass.

Malen did not add to his own tally on Saturday, but his influence on this team keeps growing. The Dutch striker has eight league goals this campaign, plus four more in the Champions League, and he has been central to everything good about Roma since arriving on loan from Aston Villa in January. Fourteen goals in 18 league games convinced the club to make the move permanent in May, and that decision looks better with every passing week.

Lazio are away to Napoli on Sunday, and Inter host fourth-placed Como, so Roma's stay in second could be brief or could stretch further. Either way, the picture is clear: this is a team that scores freely, defends well enough, and does not lose. The title race in Italy has two Roman teams at its head, and for the first time in a quarter of a century, that does not feel like a novelty. It feels like a plan.