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The only certainty at Roma is uncertainty

The only certainty at Roma is uncertainty

Lamela, Benatia, Marquinhos, Pjanic, Gervinho and Romagnoli are some of the players that Roma has had to sell in recent years to either comply with Financial Fair Play or to overcome shortfalls in the budget. While the giallorossi deserve a lot of credit for constantly staying towards the top of the Serie A standings despite these big losses, they may struggle to continue to do so with Inter’s recent resurgence and the expected Milan sale.
 
 These are very important months for Roma, who recently parted ways with their sporting director Walter Sabatini- the person mainly responsible for finding the talents to replace the big names that left. The giallorossi have to negotiate extensions with many key players and manager Luciano Spalletti, along with working with the city to finally build the stadium that is expected to give them the financial resources to avoid having to sell so many big names.
 
New sporting director Frederic Massara, who used to be Walter Sabatini’s right hand man, certainly has had his hands full since replacing his mentor. In January he tried to find a replacement for Mohamed Salah who was playing in the Africa Cup, but while he failed to land Defrel he was able to acquire Clement Grenier on a value deal. But the winter window was just a warm up for the important business on Massara’s calendar for the next few months: negotiating extensions for Kostas Manolas, Radja Nainggolan, Kevin Strootman and Daniele De Rossi.


Reaching an agreement with these key core players is even more important when you consider that Roma will have to spend substantially just to exercise the options on Bruno Peres, Mario Rui and Federico Fazio. In addition to these three important defenders, Roma will also have to work out a deal with Arsenal to acquire Wojciech Szczesny on a permanent basis- we are looking at spending at least 30 million just to keep players who are already key members of Spalletti’s squads.
 
The Financial Fair Play Rules as well as the considerable debt James Pallotta inherited when he purchased the club, have made it necessary for Roma to acquire many players on initial loans with option to buy deals- they work well since they allow Roma to spread out the payments of the transfer fees over multiple fiscal years. If you remember, it wasn’t long ago that Juventus director Marotta was mocked for using this formula so frequently- but now the bianconeri have been able to considerably improve their revenue stream and can acquire players in a more traditional way.
 
Roma is looking to follow that same blue print by opening a new stadium. The “Stadio Della Roma” project has been one of Pallotta’s biggest initiatives since buying the club, he hired famous architect Dan Meis, who designed many facilities in the US including the Seattle Seahawks stadium as well as the home of the Los Angeles Lakers the Staples Center- but anyone who knows about bureaucracy in Italy is aware of how difficult completing a project of this magnitude can be.


Interestingly manager Luciano Spalletti has re energised the campaign for the stadium with his recent quote in Roma’s dialect “Famo Sto Stadio” (let’s build this stadium). The former Zenit manager has just one year left on his deal and he certainly has many options for his future. He would make a lot of sense for Juventus should Max Allegri leave, or he could take advantage of the popularity of Italian managers in the Premier League and move to England.
 
Spalletti will likely wait to see what happens with the stadium as well as the contract extension. Of the players looking to get a new deal, Kostas Manolas seems to be the most likely to leave. Roma has good depth at centre back since Anotnio Rudiger’s return from injury and the establishment of Federico Fazio as a legitimate centre-back in Serie A after struggling at Spurs.


 
Roma could also move Daniele De Rossi to centre-back on a permanent basis now that it appears almost certain that the captain in waiting will stay in Italy’s capital rather than moving to MLS. While Manolas has been heavily linked to Premier League clubs last summer, it now appears more likely that he’ll join Inter who is willing to more than double his wages.
 
During the January transfer window, Roma showed that they were willing to move Leandro Paredes to Juventus as long as the bianconeri’s offer was comparable to those of clubs abroad, a development that could foreshadow Manolas joining Inter for a big fee next summer. On the bright side for Roma they shouldn’t have much difficulty keeping Radja Nainggolan and Kevin Strootman long term, the Belgian international has shown his loyalty to the club despite Chelsea’s interest last summer and the Dutch midfielder’s wages are expected to remain reasonable as he continues to work on regaining his old form after some serious injuries.


While Roma will likely lose Manolas and Paredes next summer, they also could make some intriguing additions. For the midfield the giallorossi have target Frank Kessie , who could arrive if Atalanta is willing to agree to a loan with option to buy deal, and Daniele Baselli who is currently owned by Torino, a club Roma has done a lot of business with recently (Bruno Peres, Iago Falque, Iturbe). Their arrivals could allow Florenzi and De Rossi to move permanently to other positions.
 
In addition to leveraging their relationship with Torino, Roma will also continue to work with Sassuolo starting with the situation surrounding Lorenzo Pellegrini. The talented midfielder born in ’96 was sold to Sassuolo but Roma retained a buy back clause for 10 million euro, he may head to Italy’s capital along side his teammate Gregory Defrel in the summer.
 
As you can tell, we can expect another busy summer for Roma who will have to spend a lot just to keep some of their current players between extensions and exercising options to buy as will as bringing back Pellegrini. With Inter showing Suning’s financial might and the expected Milan sale it will become increasingly more difficult to keep getting Champions League revenue (even if Italy is expected to get a fourth spot soon), without the new stadium we can expect uncertainty for the giallorossi. 



David Amoyal is the manager of the English page on Gianluca Di Marzio's website where he also writes weekly articles. David covers transfer news for ESPN, and has appeared on numerous radio shows on Sirius XM in the US as well as TalkSport in the UK. David is the former editor in chief of Vavel USA and his articles have been featured in many sites around the world. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidAmoyal