Three teams top on 13 points, but only two have the numbers to back it up

Three teams on 13 points and all three unbeaten. Roma have the best defence, 3 goals conceded. Inter the best attack, 15 scored. Lazio got there by scoring 8, exactly as many as Monza have scored, and Monza are sixteenth.

Already from that line you can tell that one of the three is not like the other two.

The Meritometro replays every match counting only the chances created and conceded, then hands back the table that comes out of it. At the top stay Roma and Inter, with 12.36 and 11.12 expected points. Lazio drop to 8.00, Cagliari to 5.77.

Roma and Inter, the only two square

Roma take almost exactly what they produce, and for the other nineteen that is the worst news: there is nothing there to give back. Malen has 6 goals, Dybala has set up 20 chances without having scored one of his own yet, and the defence has conceded little to everyone except Inter, who got into the box nine times in the 2-2 at the Olimpico.

Sunday at 12:30 the leaders go to Como, who have 10 points and have just taken their first defeat at Frosinone. Como are the third team in Italy for balls carried into the box, 61 in five matches. Three days later Mourinho's Real Madrid arrive at the Olimpico, and Cristante will be missing for both.

Inter restart Saturday at 18:00 with Parma, who begin with Gilardino on the bench after Cuesta's departure. Calhanoglu and Stones are doubts. On the first of them, for fantasy football, we had already said everything: 2 goals from 0.09 expected goals, the biggest debt in the league.

Lazio and Cagliari, the bills to settle

Gattuso's Lazio have 13 points from 8.00 expected and have conceded 3 goals against 7.61 conceded. Mandas also saved a penalty at Venezia. Sunday at 15:00 they host Monza, who have 4 points and deserved 8.68: one of the teams that have taken more than they should against one of those that have taken less. If there is a match our model watches with popcorn, it is this one.

Cagliari are the most extreme case in Europe. Twelve points from 5.77 makes +6.23, the widest gap in the five major leagues: five hundredths ahead of Monaco and six ahead of Betis. In five matches they have carried 13 balls into the opposition box, two and a half per game, and have conceded 2 goals from 8.77 conceded. At Udine they won by entering the box once in ninety minutes.

Sunday at 20:45 Juventus arrive in Sardinia, and it is the match built in the lab: on one side the team that saves more goals than anyone in Italy, on the other the one that concedes fewer than all of them, 2.11 expected goals in five matchdays. Juve, though, have 10 points from 12.07 and an infirmary that reads like a bulletin: Yildiz until December, Khéphren Thuram until February, Locatelli until spring, Grabara for the whole season.

Who has to collect

Bologna have 2 points and deserved 8.02: six gone missing, the biggest hole in Italy. Tedesco was sacked on 16 September, now there is Palladino, who goes to Lecce on Sunday looking for his first win. Venezia have zero points from 5.48 and Stroppa has been confirmed: Monday they go to Bergamo.

Then Frosinone, who pull the other way: 10 points from 5.19, with 4 goals conceded against 11.00 conceded. Seven goals saved in five matches. Saturday evening they go to Napoli without Raimondo, out with the tendinopathy. Allegri's Napoli have 7 points and half the squad in the infirmary, from Buongiorno to Vergara, but they get McTominay back in the group.

At the bottom, two more new benches. Fiorentina have replaced Grosso with Vanoli after three defeats in three matches, and Saturday at 15:00 they open the round at Genoa against De Rossi's Genoa, second from bottom with one point. Two coaches who a month ago were not there, playing for both of their first wins of the season.

Matchday six, in order

It starts Saturday at 15:00 with Genoa-Fiorentina, then at 18:00 Inter-Parma and at 20:45 Napoli-Frosinone. Sunday opens at 12:30 with Como-Roma, at 15:00 Lazio-Monza and Lecce-Bologna, at 18:00 Sassuolo-Milan, at 20:45 Cagliari-Juventus. Monday closes with Atalanta-Venezia at 18:30 and Torino-Udinese at 20:45.

Before anyone writes to us

Five matchdays are few, and for the expected points of Milan, Napoli and Como we do not have a figure updated to the break: that is why you will not find them here.

There is also a gap in the per-player data: our archive counts Malen on 5 goals and Lautaro on 3, the official data say 6 and 4. The team numbers come from a different field and remain reliable.

These gaps almost always close, and not because there is some justice of the ball: luck does not repeat itself, the play does. But if Cagliari are still there in March, we will have to redo the numbers ourselves, and we will write it here without acting offended.

T.L.

The match by match verdict is in the Meritometro. For those who want the models and not the headlines, there is the Nerd Zone.