Serie A | Roma 2-0 Sassuolo: Kone and Soule secure victory eventually

It took a while to break through, but Roma then scored twice in two minutes with Manu Koné and Matias Soulé to defeat Sassuolo, while Evan Ferguson went off injured.

The Giallorossi had Mario Hermoso and Gianluca Mancini back from bans in the midweek 2-0 win away to Lecce, but Bryan Cristante was suspended instead, plus Artem Dovbyk, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Leon Bailey and Pierluigi Gollini injured, Neil El Aynaoui and Evan Ndicka at AFCON, while Wesley had flu. The Neroverdi were without a win in five, and Kristian Thorstvedt damaged his shoulder in the 3-0 midweek defeat to Juventus, joining Fali Candé, Domenico Berardi, Cristian Volpato, Filippo Romagna, Daniel Boloca and Edoardo Pieragnolo on the treatment table, plus Wayo Coulibaly at AFCON.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Paulo Dybala’s curler was beaten away by Arijanet Muric just beyond Evan Ferguson, while Mancini made a decisive tackle when Armand Laurienté went on the counter-attack.

There was a double Sassuolo chance on 17 minutes when Ismael Koné sprung the offside trap to be denied one-on-one by Mile Svilar’s legs, then Laurienté got the rebound all wrong to drill wide.

Alieu Fadera also tested Svilar at the near post, while Ferguson turned over under pressure from Jay Idzes on a cross from the right. That was his second knock to the back, so the Irish centre-forward was struggling and went off, replaced by Stephan El Shaarawy.

There was a big double chance for Roma after the restart, but after Muric got down to parry the El Shaarawy daisy-cutter, Tsimikas horribly fired the rebound over.

Matias Soulé also scuffed a finish wide from a promising position, then the referee pointed to the spot on the hour mark when Muric brought down Soulé on a Mario Hermoso header over the top. However, it was revoked by VAR because Soulé was offside, though the booking to the Sassuolo goalkeeper remained.

Pisilli’s cross-shot stung Muric’s gloves, while Manu Kone’s low drive from the edge of the area was too weak to trouble the Sassuolo goalkeeper.

Roma did finally break the deadlock when a corner was cleared, Zeki Celik took his time to pick the right pass, sending Soulé down the left to stand up a cross for the Manu Koné header from six yards.

They had barely had time to finish celebrating when scoring a second. Daniele Ghilardi combined with Celik to break down the right and pulled back, El Shaarawy had a delightful back-heel flick to set up Soulé to sweep in undisturbed.

Mario Hermoso turned the dinked Dybala cross over from six yards moments later, while Pisilli and Manu Koné had more opportunities off target.

El Shaarawy had it in the net during stoppages with a sweeping finish, but Devyne Rensch was offside for the build-up. The Little Pharaoh went close again with a lob onto the roof of the net from Dybala’s assist.

M Koné 77 (R), Soulé 79 (R)