Roma must remove expensive contracts to surpass mediocre perfomances

After a draw against Cagliari repeating similar results from last season, Wayne Girard points out that Roma must remove expensive contracts that burden the club in order to become successful and efficient…

Roma must remove expensive contracts to surpass mediocre perfomances

It was a beauty of a pass that should have gone into the back of the net. Paulo Dybala entered the pitch in the 69’  of Cagliari-Roma, with the Giallorossi in need of a prayer. In just ten minutes, he made a match winning play, beating his defender and crossing to Artem Dovbyk who hit the crossbar. A difficult thing to paint over with La Joya’s ongoing transfer saga, but staying or going, there’s a quality control issue at Roma. Throughout the rest of the 90 minutes, the only other half chance was a Matías Soulé give and go, and a poor finish by Lorenzo Pellegrini close to goal. A goalless draw with very few chances after Roma invested heavily in the attacking phase. 

The club ended the 2023/24 season in need of a change. While it was true that Jose Mourinho was underperforming with the players he had at hand, it was also apparent that certain players were not playing up to their contracts. After failing to return to the Europa League final or qualify in the Champions League through positioning in the league table, Florent Ghisolfi was brought in not just to spot talent, but also to reduce the ballooned wage bill which was the third highest of all Italian teams. 

Of Roma’s top five highest earners, just two started against Cagliari. Lorenzo Pellegrini ranks at number two, while Gianluca Mancini earns the third most. The captain has just one goal in 2024 with a growing collection of ineffective performances. Mancini, a force in defence of three, has been caught out quite a few times under Daniele De Rossi’s higher line of a back four.

The highest paid player, Dybala, was on the bench for aforementioned reasons, but Tammy Abraham was a technical choice, with his own rumours swirling over a move to Saudi Arabia. Before his ACL tear he went through a stinker of a season, and couldn’t find his feet with the few matches he played during the end of last season. His output is a cause of concern not just to his parent club, but to himself as an individual.

In seventh, tenth, and twelfth place are Bryan Cristante, Chris Smalling, and Rick Karsdorp respectively. Cristante had an average game, and to be fair, an average career at Roma since moving over from Atalanta six years ago. Chris Smalling’s injuries have been a blow to the club as he was the rock of the defence, and Karsdorp has changed his agent while being frozen out of the squad with little motive to further his career. 

Eldor Shomurodov was close to signing for Atlanta United FC, but the deal fell through for another blow at an almost €2m yearly salary. Marash Kumbulla earns almost a million and a half more than him, and was finally relieved of the financial burden – albeit temporarily – with a loan to Espanyol. 

On Sunday, first team players sitting on Roma’s bench accumulated €27.7m, or 32% of the club’s entire wage bill. This does not take into account the amortisation of each player’s contract, combining their total wage and transfer cost spread out over the duration of their contract to find the true yearly cost. Even without adding that sum, it’s glaringly obvious that such an amount of paid wage sitting on the bench signals a grave situation for a club getting only mediocre results.

Sitting on massive wages and lacklustre results, Roma, De Rossi, and Ghisolfi find themselves with a major task of consolidating salaries, spotting talent, and becoming a cohesive team in the process. It will take a special type of wheeling and dealing to remove these unnecessary, costly assets, but when it’s done Roma will be able to work on finer details towards success.

It makes you think that Dybala is the least of the club’s worries.