We have all the pre-match preamble you need as Roma run out at the Stadio Olimpico for the first time this season against recently promoted Cremonese on Monday (kick-off: 18:30 CEST)...

CREMONESE

League position: 11th
Head coach: Massimiliano Alvini
Serie A top scorer: David Okereke, Matteo Bianchetti (both one)

RECENT FORM

ROMA: - - - - W
CREMONESE: - - - W L

The Giallorossi opened the season with a 1-0 victory over Salernitana thanks to Bryan Cristante’s strike and the result could have been far more comfortable had Roma not spurned a number of opportunities.

Jose Mourinho’s men will have been more than satisfied to pick up all three points and a clean sheet to go with it, though, as Paulo Dybala, Georginio Wijnaldum and Nemanja Matic all made their debuts for the club.

As for Cremonese, last season’s Serie B runners-up they were one of 10 sides that tasted defeat on Matchday 1 as the Italian top-flight was split down the middle on week one.

They were denied a point in the dying moments as Rolando Mandragora hit a 95th-minute winner for Fiorentina and had to last the entirety of the second-half with 10-men after Gonzalo Escalante’s straight red that sees him miss the trip to Rome.

Possible Cremonese line-up

(3-4-1-2)

Radu; Bianchetti, Vasquez, Chiriches; Ghiglione, Pickel, Ascacibar, Sernicola; Zanimacchia; Okereke, Dessers

LAST MEETING

DANGER MAN
David Okereke

Each of Cremonese’s first two competitive matches of the 2022-23 campaign have ended in 3-2 results, with the first going their favour against Ternana in the cup before the reverse at La Viola.

Okereke has been on target in both matches since joining from Belgian outfit Club Brugge in the summer to start life with a bang in Cremona.

The 24-year-old Nigerian scored seven times in Serie A while on-loan at Venezia last term and Roma know just how much of a handful he can be.

He scored in both meetings with the Giallorossi in 2021-22, including the winner in Venezia's 3-2 victory at the Penzo.

MATCH STATS

This will be the 15th match between Roma and Cremonese in Serie A, and the first since February 1996, which resulted in a 3-0 Giallorossi victory thanks to goals from Luigi Di Biagio, Abel Balbo and Massimiliano Cappioli.

The Giallorossi have won 10 of the previous 14 meetings (W10, D2, L2), including each of the last three that have seen Roma score nine times.

Cremonese have won only one of the seven away games played in the top-flight against Roma (W1, D1, L5), a 2-1 win in October 1993.

Including the final game of last season, Roma have not conceded a goal in two successive Serie A fixtures, their longest league run without conceding in the competition since 2018’s four-game streak.

PLAYER STATS

• Mourinho could become just the third Roma manager since the 1994-95 campaign to win each of the first two matches of a new top-flight season for two consecutive campaigns, after Luciano Spalletti (2006-07, 2007-08) and Rudi Garcia (2013-14 and 2014-15).
  
• Roma’s two highest-scoring players against Cremonese in Serie A are Rudi Voller (six goals) and Balbo (five).
  
• Tammy Abraham scored at least one goal against each of the three newly promoted sides last season - one against Venezia and Salernitana, plus two against Empoli.
  
• Okereke’s goals against Roma last year mean he has a better record against the Giallorossi in Serie A than any other club bar Empoli (also two goals).

WHAT THEY SAID

“I'm sorry for the players and for the many Cremonese fans present. A goal like this is that situation leaves a bitter taste, but it can happen. We're disappointed with the result, not with the performance, but in this game a ball that goes in and out makes the difference.

"La Cremo is completely new [to the league] and we still lack some knowledge, knowledge that will only come with time."

- Cremonese coach Alvini after the late 3-2 defeat to Fiorentina