Roma's attack dismantles Udinese inside 37 minutes
A four-goal first-half blitz took Roma's job out of the equation early at the Bluenergy Stadium, leaving Udinese coach Kosta Runjaic facing fresh questions after a 5-2 defeat.
Roma did not need the second half. By the time Evan Ndicka headed in Matias Soulé's corner in the 37th minute, Gian Piero Gasperini's side had already scored four times at Udinese, turning what might have been a tense away fixture into a procession before the interval.
The scoreline, 5-2 in the end, flattered Udinese only slightly. Two late goals either side of Matteo Palma's well-taken volley gave the Friulani a respectable final margin, but the contest itself was settled long before Nicolò Zaniolo pulled one back five minutes into the second half, according to Football Italia.
Rotation stayed minimal and it worked
Gasperini made little change to the side that beat Cagliari 4-2, with a Champions League trip to face Manchester United on the horizon. Paulo Dybala, Mile Svilar, Manu Koné and Lorenzo Pellegrini remained unavailable, and Gianluca Mancini was the only enforced rest, with Rodrigo Mora coming into the starting line-up in his place, Football Italia reported.
That decision to prioritise continuity over fresh legs paid off inside ten minutes. Wesley's cross from the left picked out Bryan Cristante, whose header from ten yards beat goalkeeper Maduka Okoye into the near bottom corner.
Roma kept pressing the same seam down the right and through the inside channels. Christian Kabasele was exposed repeatedly, first failing to cut out a Soulé pass that sent Donyell Malen clear, then watching Soulé himself beat the offside trap and strike the post. Malen then hit the crossbar after forcing a save from Okoye, a sequence of near-misses that made the eventual breakthrough feel inevitable rather than fortunate.
Udinese's back line could not cope with the half-space running
The second goal showed the pattern that undid Udinese all afternoon. Cristante drove into the right side of the box and squared for Mora to tap in at the back post, Roma repeatedly finding runners arriving late into the space between full-back and centre-back rather than relying on crosses alone.
Malen's goal, cutting inside Kabasele before beating Okoye at the near post from a long ball by Mario Hermoso, underlined the same idea: Udinese's defenders were being asked to track movement across the width of the box, and kept losing the runner rather than the ball.
Ndicka's header from Soulé's corner completed the first-half rout and carried extra significance for the defender, who suffered a collapsed lung at the same stadium in April 2024, Football Italia noted.
Runjaic's position looks precarious after a brief reprieve
Udinese arrived in Udine having just ended a six-match losing run with a goalless draw at Parma, though missing Oumar Solet, David Alaba, Alessandro Zanoli, Idrissa Gueye and Vakoun Bayo. Any momentum from that result evaporated inside the opening half-hour against Roma.
Zaniolo's goal, created when Gollini could only parry a deflected shot from Lennon Miller into his path, briefly suggested a way back into the game. The forward did not celebrate against the Udinese supporters who had jeered him throughout, a detail Football Italia pointed to as evidence of the tension between player and crowd.
Nahuel Molina then chose to set up Malen rather than shoot himself when sliding in against his former club, before Palma's goal arrived from a scrambled Udinese corner: Hassane Kamara's header back across goal found Wesley, who kept Palma onside for a clean volley from twelve yards in the 78th minute.
Roma had the last word anyway. Unai Gomez struck the post attempting to make it 4-3, but Daniele Ghilardi settled matters in stoppage time, chesting down Santiago Castro's dinked assist before smashing a right-footed half-volley into the roof of the net.
With the result confirmed as a 5-2 win, Roma's attention turns to the Champions League meeting with Manchester United, their squad management through this fixture now looking like a calculated success rather than a risk. For Udinese, the pressure on Runjaic has only intensified after a first-half collapse that undid whatever confidence the Parma draw had built.