Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri dismissed the threat of Roma after seeing Rudi Garcia's men on the ropes for much of a thrilling scoreless draw with Napoli at the San Paolo on Sunday.

On-loan Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny produced a series of fine stops as Roma held on for a share of the spoils that ultimately boosted the scudetto hopes of leaders Inter Milan.

Inter had stretched their lead over Fiorentina to four points with a 4-0 away win at Udinese on Saturday although La Viola can reduce the arrears when they face champions Juventus in Sunday's late game.

Napoli remain third and are now four points off the pace, while Roma are seven points behind Inter in fourth spot, although Rudi Garcia's men will be overtaken by Juventus if the Bianconeri win in Turin.

But Sarri's men were in total command for much of the game and only had themselves, and Szczesny, to blame for failing to score.

"If that was a boxing match they would have ended up throwing in the towel," Sarri said.

"We had seven chances on goal to their none, we totally dominated possession and we didn't give anything away. Roma came here to defend."

Roma travelled to the San Paolo as underdogs on account of their poor record at Napoli's legendary stadium as well as their ongoing crisis.

Their last victory in Naples came in December 2011 and with one win from their last five league games their recent form paled in comparison to Napoli's, who suffered only their second defeat of the campaign away to Bologna last week.

Roma, however, made a bright start with Mohamed Salah firing a yard wide of Pepe Reina's far post and Edin Dzeko seeing his header whistle just wide of the upright.

But Napoli were soon into their stride and controlled proceedings from then on, only for Szczesny to come up with several fine saves to stop Marek Hamsik, Lorenzo Insigne and Gonzalo Higuain.

Sarri added: "We made mistakes in front of goal and our crossing wasn't always great, but it was one of our best performances so far."

Roma have now failed to win their last three league games having drawn away at Torino last week and conceding defeat to Atalanta in the capital a fortnight ago.

But it was a night of relief for Garcia, who saw his side whistled off the park on Wednesday when they squeezed into the last 16 of the Champions League following a dour stalemate with BATE Borisov.

"I'm happy because we were solid throughout and taking a point from Napoli is an interesting result for us," said the Frenchman, who disagreed with Sarri's appraisal of their performance.

"In the second half we had at least one shot on goal, so you can't say we had none. We could even have nicked it in the end."