Luciano Spalletti warns that his AS Roma side would almost certainly lose if they went to Juventus Stadium looking for a draw in Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash in Turin.

“Our position is easy to explain: this is a fundamental game for us,” Spalletti told reporters at his pre-match press conference. “We can’t go there and look for a draw, we’d lose for sure. We’re a strong team and we have to go there and give an account of ourselves, showing our strength.

“The goal is to make sure that the return match is a very important one, and that’s what we’re working for. Will Juventus attack? In their DNA they have the awareness of their physical strength, their character.

“They’ll come to force the game, with the pressure from their stadium, they have other major ambitions [the Champions League] so if they can delineate them with the game tomorrow that will be very important for them.

“We need to be good at managing that and asserting our own quality, because we’ll certainly have our say. I’ve always seen these games as beautiful challenges where we’ve been chasing them because they’re better, so tomorrow we want to see their qualities more closely and shorten their lead in the table.

“Is this our last chance for the Scudetto? In my mind it’s never the end, we always must have the attitude that we can overcome something which happens to us. That has to be our attitude. I will say that it’s a crucial game, and [if we lose] it’d be very hard, but still possible.”