Hermoso and Mora Score as Roma Beat Sassuolo 3-0 and Stay Unbeaten

AS Roma beat Sassuolo 3-0 at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday night to stay unbeaten in Serie A and move within a point of leaders Lazio. Mario Hermoso scored in the 27th minute, a Sebastian Walukiewicz own goal doubled the lead three minutes later, and Rodrigo Mora added the third in the 58th minute of the Matchday 11 match in Rome.

Malen at the heart of all three goals

Hermoso opened the scoring midway through the first half. He exchanged passes with Donyell Malen and fired the ball into the roof of the net from 14 yards. It was the defender's eighth goal for Roma, and every one of them has come at the Olimpico.

The second goal followed three minutes later, and Malen was involved again. His angled drive took a double deflection off Jay Idzes and Sebastian Walukiewicz, wrong-footed goalkeeper Arijanet Muric, and went in as a Walukiewicz own goal.

Mora finished the job in the 58th minute. He played a give and go with Malen, collected the return, and drilled the ball through the legs of Duje Caleta-Car into the far bottom corner. Malen had a hand in all three goals on the night.

A response to the midweek defeat

The win was a direct response to a hard night in Europe. In midweek Roma lost 3-2 at Manchester United in the Champions League after leading 2-0, a result that could have lingered. Instead they settled the league match inside half an hour and controlled it from there.

It was Roma's fifth straight win over Sassuolo in Serie A. More than that, it kept a small piece of club history going. Roma have now gone unbeaten through the opening 11 games of a Serie A season for only the third time in their history, and they sit one point behind leaders Lazio.

Injury lists on both benches

Roma did it with a long list of absentees. Paulo Dybala, Mile Svilar and Lorenzo Pellegrini were all missing, and fresh injuries had also ruled out Pierluigi Gollini, Gianluca Mancini and Devyne Rensch. There was one return to note. Manu Kone played for the first time since the thigh injury he picked up on October 14.

Sassuolo coach Alberto Aquilani faced his former club for the first time with problems of his own. Domenico Berardi, Cristian Volpato, Daniel Boloca, Ismael Kone and Fedde Leysen were all out, and Aquilani switched his side to a 3-5-2 formation for the trip to Rome. It did not hold. Sassuolo have now lost five league games in a row and drop to 17th in the table ahead of the international break.

Flashscore named Hermoso its man of the match, a fair call on a night when the defender scored the first goal and Roma kept a clean sheet at the other end.