There are wins that reassure and wins that announce. This was firmly the second kind. AS Roma arrived at Via Del Mare with two victories behind them and left with a third that carried an altogether different weight, dismantling Lecce 4-0 with a display so clinical it bordered on cruelty. By the time the dust settled, the visitors sat top of Serie A, unbeaten and yet to concede a single goal all season.

The damage was done early and done with menace. Donyell Malen struck twice inside the opening 23 minutes, Matías Soulé made it three barely two minutes later, and Rodrigo Mora added a fourth after the break to complete a night Lecce will want scrubbed from memory. Eight goals scored, none conceded: the numbers alone tell the story of a Roma side moving with real purpose.

For the hosts, freshly promoted to a season of survival, this was a brutal education. Lecce had opened their campaign with three points and a foothold in mid-table, but here they were simply overrun, chasing shadows in claret and gold long before the interval. Thirteenth place now looks a fragile perch after a chastening evening.

Malen's early raid

Roma barely needed to break sweat before they were ahead. With only four minutes gone, Malen collected possession in the centre of the box and steered a right-footed finish into the bottom right corner, the Dutchman's composure setting the tone for everything that followed. It was the sort of early blow that drains belief, and Lecce never quite recovered their footing.

The second was a study in ruthlessness. On 23 minutes Wesley did the spadework down the flank and rolled the ball into Malen, who had only to convert from very close range, this time into the bottom left corner. Two goals, two corners of the net, one afternoon transformed into an exercise in damage limitation for the home side.

Malen's brace spoke of a forward in ferocious early-season form, but it also exposed a Lecce defence pulled apart by movement and quick thinking. Every time Roma advanced they seemed to find space where there should have been bodies, and the visitors sensed blood.

Soulé lands the sucker punch

If Malen's second had knocked Lecce down, Soulé's strike two minutes later left them flat on the canvas. This was the goal that captured Roma's counter-attacking sharpness: a fast break sprung at speed, the ball worked to Soulé in the centre of the box, and a left-footed finish rifled into the bottom right corner. Three-nil, and the game was gone before the half-hour.

There is a particular kind of demoralisation in conceding twice in the space of a hundred and twenty seconds, and Lecce wore it visibly. Heads dropped, distances between players grew, and the crowd at Via Del Mare fell into a stunned quiet. Roma, by contrast, played with the freedom of a team who could sense no danger coming the other way.

The pattern of the goal mattered as much as the goal itself. Roma were not merely defending a lead; they were hunting more, springing forward whenever Lecce over-committed. It was the football of a side who believe they belong at the top, and who intend to stay there.

Mora seals the rout

The second half offered Lecce little respite. On 65 minutes Gianluca Mancini, surging forward from defence, supplied the pass for Rodrigo Mora to sweep a right-footed shot into the bottom right corner and make it four. The margin was now emphatic, and there was something almost casual about the way Roma extended it, a fourth goal arriving as if by routine.

That Mancini turned provider underlined the completeness of the performance. When defenders are stepping in to fashion goals, it tends to mean a team is fully in command, and Roma spent the closing half-hour simply managing a contest already won. The clean sheet, preserved across two matches now, will please them almost as much as the goals.

For Lecce, the fourth was merely confirmation of a night that had escaped them long before. There was no way back, no consolation, no moment to cling to. The scoreboard read 0-4 and it flattered nobody in white.

Table takes shape

Two games is a small sample, but Roma have made it a loud one. Six points from six, eight goals scored and none conceded, they head the Serie A table with the swagger of genuine contenders. This was not a nervy early-season win ground out against the odds; it was a demolition delivered with control and appetite, the kind of result that puts the rest of the division on notice.

Lecce, meanwhile, are left to regroup in thirteenth. Three points from their two outings is not disastrous for a club whose priority is survival, but the manner of this defeat will sting. Four goals shipped and none scored across ninety minutes exposes work to be done at both ends, and quickly, before confidence begins to fray.

The season is young enough that neither position is fixed. Roma will know that a title challenge is measured over months, not weeks, and that the summit in late August guarantees nothing. Yet performances like this build belief, and belief has a way of feeding on itself.

For now, the story is straightforward. Roma look formidable, Lecce look vulnerable, and Via Del Mare has provided the first true statement of the new campaign. The chasing pack has been warned, and the men from the capital appear in no mood to relinquish their early advantage.