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

It was a beautiful pass that should have ended up in the net. Paulo Dybala entered the pitch between Cagliari and Roma in the 69th minute and the Giallorossi needed a chance. Just ten minutes in, he made a game-winning move, outpacing his defender and passing to Artem Dovbyk, who hit the crossbar. That’s hard to overplay given La Joya’s ongoing transfer saga, but stay or go, Roma have a quality control problem. During the remaining 90 minutes, the only other half-chances were a one-two from Matías Soulé and a poor finish from Lorenzo Pellegrini near goal. A goalless draw with very few chances after Roma had invested heavily in the attacking phase.

The club ended the 2023/24 season in need of change. While it was true that Jose Mourinho was underperforming with the players he had at his disposal, it was also evident that certain players were not living up to their contracts. After failing to return to the Europa League final or qualify for the Champions League by finishing top of the table, Florent Ghisolfi was brought in not only to discover talent but also to reduce the bloated wage bill, which was the third highest of any Italian team.

Of Roma’s five highest-earning players, only two started against Cagliari. Lorenzo Pellegrini is number two, while Gianluca Mancini is third. The captain has scored just one goal in 2024 despite a growing number of ineffective performances. Mancini, a force in the three-man defense, has been caught off guard a number of times under Daniele De Rossi’s higher back four.

The highest-paid player, Dybala, was on the bench for the reasons mentioned above, but Tammy Abraham was a technical choice as there were rumours of a move to Saudi Arabia. He had a miserable season before his cruciate ligament tear and failed to hit his stride in the few games he played at the end of last season. His performance is a cause for concern not only for his parent club but also for himself.

Ranked seventh, tenth and twelfth respectively are Bryan Cristante, Chris Smalling and Rick Karsdorp. Cristante has had an average game and, to be honest, an average career at Roma since joining from Atalanta six years ago. Chris Smalling’s injuries have been a huge blow to the club as he was the rock in defence and Karsdorp has changed agents while being left out of the squad with no interest in furthering his career.

Eldor Shomurodov was close to joining Atlanta United FC, but the deal fell through, taking another hit to his annual salary of almost €2 million. Marash Kumbulla earns almost a million and a half more than him and was finally relieved of the financial burden – albeit only temporarily – by being loaned to Espanyol.

On Sunday, Roma’s regular players on the bench earned €27.7 million, or 32% of the club’s total salary costs. This does not take into account the amortization of each player’s contract. The true annual cost is determined by adding the total salary and transfer costs over the contract term. Even without this figure, it is obvious that such a sum of salary for players on the bench signals a serious situation for a club that is only producing mediocre results.

With high salaries and lackluster results, Roma, De Rossi and Ghisolfi face a huge task of consolidating salaries, discovering talent and becoming a cohesive team in the process. Getting rid of these unnecessary, costly assets will require a special kind of negotiation, but once that’s done, Roma can work on the finer details to succeed.

You might think that Dybala is the least of the club’s worries.