Roma suffered a 1-1 stalemate on Saturday against Sassuolo which could see them lose ground on leading trio Napoli, Juventus and Inter Milan in the race for the Serie A title.

Roma took the lead when Lorenzo Pellegrini scored against his old club Sassuolo just after the half-hour in Rome. Edin Dzeko picked out Pellegrini who found the back of the net from 12 yards. He kept his celebrations to a minimum against his former teammates.

Sassuolo continued to impress, Alisson controlling Antonino Ragusa’s strike at the base of the near post and Kostas Manolas sliding in to block Politano’s shot. Manolas perhaps sustained an injury during that move and was replaced at half-time by Juan Jesus, while disappointing Schick made way for Stephan El Shaarawy.

Radja Nainggolan robbed Cannavaro, surged forward and forced a low fingertip save at the near post, but at the other end, Ragusa fired over the bar on another counter-attack.

Edin Dzeko had the ball in the net with a sensational rising strike from the tightest of angles but had wandered marginally offside. The Bosnian tried again, curling just wide from the edge of the penalty area.

Sassuolo finally got the equaliser they deserved with 12 minutes to go, as Federico Peluso’s cross from the left found the head of Simone Missiroli from 12 yards.

Roma thought they had restored their lead on 85 minutes with Florenzi, who ran on to a Dzeko flicked pass to dink it over the on-rushing Andrea Consigli. However, while Florenzi was not offside, Cengiz Under way and he actively got in the way of Missiroli, preventing the Sassuolo man from running into the area.