With Bryan Cristante returning to full training, Gianluca Mancini has almost recovered from a groin injury to feature as a centre-back, AS Roma will still be without both Houssem Aouar (muscle pain) and Paulo Dybala ( thigh pain) in this week's Serie A nail match.
In addition, the British star duo Chris Smalling and Tammy Abraham are also unable to participate due to injury. Marash Kumbulla suffered an ACL a few months ago and has almost recovered. However, it would be too risky for Jose Mourinho to let him on.
A big positive for the Italian capital team is the return of Romelu Lukaku. Roma have won an average of 1.8 points in matches with Lukaku compared to the Belgian striker. In 6 encounters with Napoli in Serie A, Lukaku scored 4 goals, which is a very good performance. According to statistics, if Roma had not had Lukaku, they would not have won against Napoli and would have only had an average of 0.3 points/match.
After successfully rotating the squad in the match earlier this week, captain Walter Mazzarri will have the strongest force for the away trip to Rome. Two of the most important factors for the away team are captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo and goalkeeper Alex Meret who will return to the starting lineup.
In addition, midfielder duo Frank Anguissa and Piotr Zielinski will play after missing the Coppa Italia loss to Frosinone. However, Eljif Elmas and Mathias Olivera are all but unable to play.
If Roma have Romelu Lukaku, Napoli also have Victor Osimhen. In this match, Napoli's third choice will be Victor Osimhen - Khvicha Kvaratskhelia - Matteo Politano. In this trio, Politano has quite a chance in each confrontation with Roma, he has participated in 6 goals when facing the capital team. Another indicator can reassure the Naples team when Politano have scored 4 away goals since the beginning of the season.
This is the season Napoli plays as the reigning Serie A champions, they do not want to be so bad that they cannot be in the group to play in the Champions League next season. Meanwhile, Mourinho's AS Roma, despite hundreds of difficulties, still tries to be in the group to play in the Europa League before the new year 2024. Mourinho is eager to win another major trophy for his team in the eternal city of Italy.
AS Roma's expected lineup: patricio; Mancini, Llorente, Ndicka; Kristensen, Cristante, Paredes, Bove, Zalewski; El Shaarawy, Lukaku
Napoli's expected lineup: Meret; Di Lorenzo, Natan, Rrahmani, Rui; Anguissa, lobotka, Zielinski; Politano, Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia
The match between AS Roma and Napoli will take place at 2:45 a.m. on December 24 (Vietnam time), live on VTV Cab.
