Roma slipped quietly down into third place in the scudetto race as Fabio Capello's softly-softly approach backfired on him today, as his Championship wining team were held to a 1-1 draw at lowly Lecce. Roma haven't now won away from home since the turn of the year.

With the Champions League and the scudetto dividing his attentions Capello has chosen to rotate his squad with alarming frequency, rather than try to Blitzkrieg his opponents on both fronts. He's tried to sneak his victories by playing the least strongest side that's still capeable of winning and the result, draws with relegation threatened sides like Brescia and Lecce, has meant lost Serie-A points.

Like the rest of Italy Capello doesn't seem to be able to decide whether Francesco Totti is a playmaker or a striker. He has trouble deciding when to play Montella, an unshakeable faith in Marco Delvecchio's questionable ability and a marked reluctance to play Roma's £20m wonderkid Antonio Cassano.

Everything looked rosy at half-time, Vincent Candela had given Roma the lead when his curling free-kick passed through a crowded goalmouth untouched and entered the net, and back in Turin Juve were struggling against a revitalised Bologna. But disaster was just a kiss away, a horrendous mistake from goalkeeper Luigi Antonioli let the home side back into the game for a share of the points.

Against all expectation Capello had chosen to leave Batistuta on the bench and place his faith in his second string strikers, Vincenzo Montella and Marco Delvecchio, with Totti 'in the hole'.

Lecce were understrength, with Romanian defender Ghiorgie Popescu forced to miss the game, but the makeshift defence gave the Champions problems in breaking through their offside trap, thugh Delvecchio wa sunlucky when a good effort hit both the post and the crossbar.

With Lecce trailing 1-0 a tactical second-half change, introducing Colonello in place of Chevanton, enabled Lecce to explore the flanks. A corner kick came over, Antonioli was all at sea, reverting to his bad habits of last season, and Vugrinec was left with the simplest of chances to head home, indeed it would have been harder for him to miss than to score.

Capello reacted, but it was all too late, he threw on Lima and Batistuta in place of the largely ineffectual Montella and Delvecchio and introduced the youngster Cassano.

A Casano effort managed to scrape the post but that was as good as it got. Struggling Lecce had Savino set off in the last minute of the game, following a second bookable offence, but his 10-man side held out for the five minutes of injury time for a share of the spoils. News filtered through that a 'fluke' of an own goal had given Juventus a 2-1 win over Bologna and Roma were left to rue another missed opportunity as once again they had failed on their travels, another case of two points dropped, not one point gained.