Gasperini has transformed Roma in to serious Serie A contenders
It hasn’t always been pretty, but Gian Piero Gasperini has, so far, been an inspired appointment at Roma, transforming them from Champions League qualification nearly-men to genuine Scudetto chasers.
By Alex Roberts
At the time of writing, Roma sit top of the table, with a HUGE game against current Scudetto holders Napoli coming up at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday (November 30). Max Allegri’s AC Milan are currently sandwiched between the two sides, in second, the porchetta between two slices of pizza bianca.
After some fantastic work from everyone’s favourite Italian grandad Claudio Ranieri, Roma came close to finishing in the Champions League spots last season, losing just once between the start of the new year and the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
Gasperini didn’t need to change too much following the Tinkerman’s reign. Roma still set up with three at the back, with wingbacks Wesley and Mehmet Zeki Çelik providing the width while Lorenzo Pellegrini and Matias Soulé sit behind the striker as their main creative outlets.
During his nine years at Atalanta, Gasperini was a bit of a unicorn. An older Italian manager who wanted his side to play expansive, attacking football, and they reaped the rewards, going from an unremarkable league side to European regulars and even Europa League winners in 2023/24.
Now, we’re not sure what happened over the summer, but the 67-year-old appears to have had a hard factory reset and reverted to type, prioritising defensive solidity and often grinding out results.
Roma aren’t free scoring, far from it. They’ve only managed to bag 15 league goals from their 12 games, the least of the six sides currently sitting in the European spots, and 11 fewer than fourth placed Inter Milan.
But who cares? There is more than one way to play football and sometimes a manager needs to play the cards they’ve been dealt. Roma control most of the games they play, averaging 58.6% possession, and only conceding 0.5 goals per 90 minutes, the lowest in Serie A.
It’s the quality of the chances they concede that makes their defensive performances so impressive. Only 57.60% of opposition shots are inside the Roma box, averaging 0.11xG per shot, so, essentially, any team that faces Roma is limited to testing goalkeeper Mile Svilar from long-range, and he is eating them up.
Speaking of the big Serbian, he is currently FotMob’s highest rated player in the Roma squad. We’ll pause for applause… Svilar is finally living up to the hype that he was getting as a youngster at Anderlecht, and he’s probably the best ‘keeper in Italy at the moment.
Svilar has played every minute for Roma, and he has the highest save percentage in the league at 85.4%, has prevented 4.5 goals, kept six clean sheets, and conceded just six goals. He is key to everything good happening at Roma so far this season.
A little further ahead of him is Gianluca Mancini. He is, in all honesty, a pretty typical modern Italian defender, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, domestically at least, just don’t watch his recent performances for the national team.
Playing as the right-sided centre back, with the equally impressive Evan Ndicka in the middle, Mancini has completed the most tackles (23), interceptions (24), and blocks (8) amongst the Roma squad.
With all of that being said about how good Roma are at the back, their attackers have struggled, but their tidy little Argentinian playmaker Soulé deserves some flowers. One of Serie A’s few genuine entertainers, Gasperini will be thanking Jupiter he’s at Roma.
Soulé can play anywhere across the front line, but he’s mostly played as the right sided ten in Gasperini’s preferred 3-4-2-1 formation, with Lorenzo Pellegrini playing alongside him more often than not.
On loan from Brighton, Evan Ferguson hasn’t got going at Roma with just one goal and one assist in his 11 games across all competitions. Luckily for him, main striker rival Artem Dovbyk hasn’t been much better.
Pellegrini started the season well, scoring the winner against Lazio and then providing an assist in the Europa League win over Nice, but his form has since fallen off a cliff, and has been pretty anonymous up until the win over Udinese earlier in the month.
So, Soulé has carried Roma in the final third, not only scoring four goals and providing two assists in his 12 Serie A games, but creating ten chances, 34 touches in the opposition box, and 322 successful passes. He has been their best attacking asset bar none.
Perhaps Soulé’s most overlooked asset is his work rate. He never stops, constantly hunting down opposition defenders and force mistakes, winning possession in the final third 14 times, making 55 recoveries, and winning 42 duels. He’s a little Jack Russell of a number ten.
It’s been ten years since Roma sat at the top of the Serie A table after 12 games, and fans are daring to dream. Speaking after their 3-1 win over Cremonese on Sunday (November 23), Gasperini tried to temper those dreams
“To keep playing the way we’ve been playing,” he said. “I’ve already said this: there’s nothing wrong with dreaming when you’re doing great, but we know very well that dreams rarely come true. It’s very nice to experience this dream and we will enjoy it as long as we can. We pretend to wake up and sleep a bit longer – that way it will last longer.”
In all honesty, there is still a long way to go for Roma, and if their strikers don’t start bagging some goals, that Scudetto will be nothing more than a glint in Gasperini’s eye. But, after a chaotic few years on and off the pitch, progress is being made.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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