Italy Round 26

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Roma vs Monza Preview:

Possible starting lineups:

Roma:
Svilar; Rensch, Mancini, Ndicka; Saelemaekers, Kone, Paredes, Angelino; Dybala, Pellegrini; Shomurodov

Monza:
Turati; D'Ambrosio, Palacios, Carboni; Pereira, Urbanski, Bianco, Kyriakopoulos; Ciurria, Mota; Ganvoula

Roma will welcome Monza to Stadio Olimpico in the last match of the 26th round of Serie A. The club from the Capital have a turbulent season, but right now they have found the stability. The damage from the begin was too big. As You probably know, the chaotic situation started when the club officials decided to sack Daniele de Rossi, the former legend loved by the fans. They didn't accept the decision and went to Trigoria training center looking for the club CEO Lina Souloukou. Feared for her safety, she resigned and left the club. New coach Juric also left the club few weeks later. Claudio Ranieri came out of retirement at the age of 73 to help Roma until the end of the season. Ranieri made a small miracle as Roma and they managed to eliminate Porto in Europa League.. The domestic results are also good, Roma are unbeaten on the last nine matches in Serie A, winning six of them. The atmosphere in the squad is very good, though Ranieri has some injury worries. Striker Artem Dovbyk pulled out of the second match against Porto with a thigh injury and he is rated as doubtful for Monday's game. If the Ukrainian fails to recover in time, then Eldor Shomurodov is ready to deputize. Bryan Cristante and Alexis Saelemaekers are both available after serving Europa League bans, while January signing Devyne Rensch returned from injury in midweek.

Monza are at the bottom of Serie A with 14 points. They are nine points away from the safety and the situation is very complicated, maybe critical. Just as Roma, they have three coaching changes, but the difference is two names were involved. Monza started with Alessandro Nesta as head coach, but the results were poor and the club officials decided to bring Salvatore Bocchetti. The results were even worse, he lost six of his seven games in charge, so they re-hired former coach Alessandro Nesta. But the results are poor again and Nesta's comeback could not inspire Monza to record their third league victory of the season. In the last round they played a goalless draw with fellow strugglers Lecce. That means the Biancorossi have now failed to score in three of their last four matches. Monza still have a long injury list that includes Stefano Sensi, Roberto Gagliardini, Samuele Birindelli, Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro and captain Matteo Pessina. That's not all as defenders Luca Caldirola and Stefan Lekovic are both rated as doubtful. On top of that Armando Izzo is suspended. Mota is out of form, he hasn't scored a league goal since October, but coach Nesta has no better option. Just to mention, he scored the goal in the reverse fixture between Monza and Roma.

Roma vs Monza Prediction:

Roma are currently 9th with 37 points and they can't go higher as 7th-placed duo of Milan and Bologna have 41 point. It seems the European spots are far away for Roma. Their ambitions are mainly connect with UEFA Europa League. Roma beat Porto 4:3 on aggregate, but the players are desperate for rest. I think Ranieri is well aware about that and I expect to rotate them. As I wrote above, Roma are unbeaten on the last nine matches in Serie A. They scored on each of them, but at the same time conceded on five of those nine games. Monza are at the bottom of the table, but they managed to find the back of the net against the big guns. Monza lost 2:1 to Juventus in December, lost 3:1 to Bologna in January and lost 5:1 to Lazio last week. I think Nesta will like to impress on his own stadium. Maybe it it too much to beat Roma, but it is not impossible his men to score.

Roma vs Monza Pick: Both teams to score - Yes @ 2.20 with Pinnacle