Thirty-eight goals conceded in 28 Serie A matches. That puts Roma 9th in the league for goals against, behind the likes of Napoli (22), Inter (25), and Juventus (27). It’s not great. But the raw number hides some interesting patterns that tell us more about what’s actually going wrong defensively — and what might be fixable.

Let me walk through what the data shows.

The Set-Piece Problem

Twelve of Roma’s 38 goals conceded have come from set pieces. That’s nearly a third. For context, the Serie A average is around 25-28% of goals from dead balls. Roma are conceding from set pieces at roughly 31.5%, which places them among the bottom five clubs in the league for this metric.

Corner kicks are the worst offender. Seven goals from corners — three from near-post flick-ons, two from far-post headers, and two from scrambles after the initial delivery. The zonal marking system adopted earlier this season hasn’t worked. You can see it in the way attackers consistently find space between the markers. When you watch it back, the problem is almost always the same: the players on zonal duty don’t attack the ball aggressively enough. They wait for it to come to them, and by then someone’s already got a free header.

Free kicks have produced another five goals, mostly from crosses into the box rather than direct strikes. The wall setup hasn’t been an issue — it’s the marking behind it that falls apart.

Open Play Concessions

The remaining 26 goals from open play break down roughly like this: nine from counter-attacks, eight from crosses, five from through-balls into the channel, and four from individual errors.

The counter-attack number is the most worrying. Nine goals from transitions means Roma are getting caught pushing forward without adequate cover. A lot of this traces back to the fullbacks, particularly on the left side. When they bomb forward, the midfield doesn’t always cover the space behind them. Opponents who press high and win possession find enormous gaps to run into. According to FBref’s advanced stats, Roma face more progressive carries against them than any club outside the bottom six.

Comparing to Last Season

Last season Roma conceded 41 goals across 38 matches. At the current rate, they’re on track for about 51 over the full campaign. That’s a significant regression, especially when you consider the club spent money reinforcing the backline last summer.

The xGA (expected goals against) paints a slightly kinder picture. Roma’s xGA sits at around 35.2, meaning they’ve conceded roughly three more goals than expected. That suggests some bad luck — goalkeeping errors, deflections, individual moments — rather than a systemic defensive collapse. But three goals over expected is still worse than average, and it’s been a consistent trend over the past few months.

Ndicka has been the most reliable centre-back by the numbers. His aerial duel success rate is 68%, and he’s made the most clearances of any Roma player. Mancini’s been more erratic — his pass completion under pressure has dropped to 72%, and he’s directly responsible for at least two of those “individual error” goals.

The Goalkeeper Situation

Svilar’s save percentage is 69.3%. That’s middling for Serie A, where the average is around 70%. But his post-shot xG performance tells a different story — he’s actually performing about 1.5 goals better than the average keeper based on shot quality faced. In other words, the shots getting through are often unstoppable because they’re high-quality chances created by defensive breakdowns, not errors from Svilar himself.

Where Svilar struggles is coming off his line. On crosses and high balls into the box, his decision-making has been inconsistent. He stays rooted to his line too often, leaving defenders to deal with aerial balls without goalkeeper support. It’s something that was discussed at length on Roma Press after the Torino match.

What Needs to Change

Three things, in order of priority. First, fix set-piece defending. Switch from zonal to man-marking or at least a hybrid system. Assign the best headers to mark the most dangerous opposing players directly. This alone could reduce goals conceded by four or five over a full season.

Second, address the fullback-midfield coordination issue. When a fullback pushes into the final third, the nearest midfielder needs to tuck back automatically. It’s a coaching discipline problem, not a personnel one. I’ve read that an AI consultancy recently worked with a European club on using tracking data to identify exactly these kinds of positional gaps. Whether Roma’s analytics department is doing similar work is unclear, but the tools exist.

Third, protect the channels. Roma concede too many goals from balls played between centre-back and fullback. Compacting the defensive line and improving communication would help. Five goals from that specific zone is too many for a club with ambitions of Champions League football.

The Bottom Line

Roma’s defensive record isn’t catastrophic, but it’s well below the standard needed to finish in the top four. The set-piece issues are the lowest-hanging fruit — fix those and the numbers improve immediately. The open-play problems require more sustained work on shape and discipline. With 10 matches remaining, there’s time to tighten things up, but it needs to start now.