Napoli vs Roma

Looking forward to their third consecutive season at the helms of the team, Claudio Ranieri will be at the Roma’s command for this Sunday’s Serie A match against Napoli.

Getting roped back into management to save his favorite team, Ranieri now faces Conte’s table-toppers in the first Derby del Sole of this campaign.

While rumors of upheaval and disgusting outcomes circulated, Roma’s management put paid to Ivan Juric’s short lived international football coaching career just as the latter boasted of four defeats in last five Serie A fixtures.

Before or after an underwhelming 1-1 draw in the Europa League, twice more the Giallorossi finished the first half of their Serie A fixtures having tasted defeat within the space of thirty-nine minutes and that was enough to start the hunt for someone new to come and take on what is clearly a sinking ship.

In order to partially appease the angry club supporters, the Rome-born coach Claudio Ranieri was convinced to abandon his retirement from club management after bidding an emotional goodbye once he took Cagliari to the safety of Serie A last summer.

There are only two managers with more pronounced success in the history of Roma in the top division: Luciano Spalletti and Rudi Garcia, who replaced Ranieri with disastrous effect, and now the latter comes back to the Eternal City with shaky confidence.

Serving in the caretaker capacity till the end of this season which will see him promote upstairs, Ranieri takes a side that is currently placed 12th in the series A having only won three league fixtures prior to this season.

They also lie at 20 th position in the 36 team Europa League, 4 points behind a top eight position that ensures qualification to the knockout stage – to compound the issue, their city rivals Lazio are at the top of the list.

Scott McTominay opened the scoring at San Siro last time out, but Inter Milan's Hakan Calhanoglu later equalized before missing a penalty that would have given the 2022–23 champions back-to-back losses.

Only once in his career has Conte suffered consecutive home losses in the Italian top flight, and that was back in 2009 when he was still at Atalanta's manager. This came after a run of 21 home victories in Serie A. Conte had previously lost his last home game 3-0 to Atalanta BC, who were playing well.

So, when he meets Ranieri on Sunday night, with the Scudetto still very much in Napoli's sights, sentiment will be lacking.

The Giallorossi lose 13% of games without Dybala, but top scorer Artem Dovbyk should be fit to start despite having a knee injury.

After missing many weeks of action, Alexis Saelemaekers has resumed team training; however, Spanish center-back Mario Hermoso and Dovbyk's deputy Eldor Shomurodov are both sidelined due to injury.

Romelu Lukaku, who scored 21 goals while on loan at Roma the previous season, will spearhead Napoli's offensive trident and has contributed directly to four goals in five league games against the hosts on Sunday.

Since Antonio Conte seems to have a fully healthy team at his disposal, former Roma player Leonardo Spinazzola can challenge Mathias Olivera for the starting left back position, and Stanislav Lobotka might take Billy Gilmour's place in midfield.