The 2025-26 Serie A season is winding down and the inevitable transfer-window speculation is starting to dominate conversations among Roma supporters. Most of the speculation, as usual, is fantasy — the elite international names linked to the club every summer who don’t actually have any realistic prospect of arriving. The more useful question is what the squad actually needs.

After watching this season’s matches as a Roma supporter who’s tried to keep his expectations grounded, here’s what the data and the eye test both suggest the priorities should be.

Defensive depth and structural quality

The defensive issues that have dogged Roma through the back half of the season aren’t going to be solved by bringing in one big-name centre back. The structural issues are bigger than that. The squad has aged at the back, the cover for the first-choice partnership has been thin, and the absence of pace has been exploited repeatedly against opponents who can play vertically.

The realistic priorities are two-fold. A genuinely quick centre back, Italian-eligible if possible to support squad balance under the various Serie A registration constraints, capable of starting twenty Serie A matches and supporting the European campaigns. The profile is recognisable — late twenties, technically competent, comfortable on the ball, with the recovery pace that the current senior partnership lacks. Roma has been linked with several plausible candidates over the past year; the realistic targets are in the second tier of Serie A or in the upper-mid range of the European market.

Alongside this, a younger development centre back signed to grow into a long-term role. The depth of academy production at this position has been thin, and the senior squad’s age profile means the medium-term planning needs to start now. The signing doesn’t need to be a household name; it needs to be a genuine prospect with the developmental runway to be a regular starter in three years’ time.

A reliable goalscoring number nine

The forward line conversation has dominated supporter discussions for two seasons running. The reality is that Roma has been scoring goals from the wide forward positions and from midfield runners but hasn’t had a reliable centre forward through the entire season. The peripheral players have produced; the central focal point hasn’t. The goal totals relative to chances created have been modest, and the difficulty in closing out matches with a goal advantage has been visible.

The realistic options here are constrained by both budget and the competitive market for centre forwards. The truly elite options aren’t realistically available; the secondary tier of European centre forwards has been picked over by clubs with deeper resources. The path that’s most likely to produce a useful signing is identifying a player at a smaller European club with a strong scoring record and underlying numbers that suggest the form is real.

The risk in this approach is that scaling up from the smaller-club environment to the demands of Roma’s competitive context produces inconsistent results. The history of summer signings at this profile has been mixed; some have made the transition successfully and others have not.

The alternative path — bringing back a former Roma player from a European spell, or making a major financial commitment to a higher-profile signing — both have their own complications. The political considerations around former Roma players have been managed differently by different sporting directors over the years. The financial commitment to a major signing depends on the club’s broader transfer strategy and the willingness of ownership to support specific moves.

Midfield rejuvenation

The midfield situation is the one I’d argue most strongly about. The current senior midfielders have produced loyal service over multiple seasons; their replacement is a sensitive squad-management issue. But the data is clear that the midfield’s defensive contribution and the support to the attacking transitions have both deteriorated through the season’s later stages, and the issue isn’t going to be solved by tactical adjustments alone.

The priorities in midfield should be a complete younger central midfielder — the kind of player who can carry the ball through pressure, contribute defensively at scale, and produce in the final third when the moment requires. This profile is rare and expensive, and Roma has competed for these players in past windows without consistent success. Whether the resources are available to make a serious bid this summer is one of the determining factors for next season.

The supplementary signing in midfield should be a tactical specialist — a defensive midfielder who can play deep, screen the back line, and provide the kind of structured platform that the current midfield has at times lacked. The profile is more available in the market than the box-to-box complete profile, and the resources required are more modest. A signing of this type would substantially improve the team’s defensive solidity even without additional defensive signings.

The youth question

The squad’s youth situation is mixed. The Primavera and academy production has been at reasonable levels, but the pathway from academy to first team has been narrower than supporters would like. Several promising players have been loaned out and have produced strong results elsewhere; whether they can return and contribute to the first-team squad next season is one of the open questions.

The realistic approach here is to bring back the loan players who’ve genuinely earned first-team consideration through their loan performances, and to integrate them properly rather than relying on them as supplementary depth. The pathway from “promising loan player” to “regular first-team contributor” requires real investment from the coaching staff and patient deployment by the manager. Whether the senior squad’s competitive demands allow that patience is a real question.

The alternative approach — selling promising young players for fees that fund higher-profile signings — has been part of Roma’s transfer strategy in past windows. The economic logic is sound but the long-term implications for squad development are mixed. Selling Pellegrini-like players in their early twenties to fund older first-team signings has a poor track record over the medium term across European football generally.

What I’d avoid

Three transfer patterns that consistently disappoint:

Bringing in late-career stars on free transfers or short-term contracts. The “experience” rationale for these signings has rarely justified the squad space and wage bill cost over the past decade across Roma and similar clubs. The senior players who’ve contributed have generally been ones already in the squad rather than late-career arrivals.

Acquiring promising prospects from outside Italy without clear pathway to the first team. The collection of South American and Eastern European prospects that has at various times sat at Trigoria has produced a small number of meaningful first-team contributions and a much larger number of loan-out-and-sell trajectories that don’t justify the original investment.

Replacing identifiable Roma cultural fits with generic high-profile international signings. The squad chemistry that has produced Roma’s best recent runs has come from identifiable shared cultural understanding among players who’ve grown up around the club’s culture. Importing players who don’t have that connection has produced talented squads that haven’t quite cohered into greater-than-the-sum-of-parts results.

The financial reality

Roma’s financial position in 2026 is more constrained than during some prior windows. The Financial Fair Play and Serie A’s specific financial regulations limit what the club can spend regardless of ownership willingness. The path to spending on the priorities listed above involves both player sales and potentially structuring deals creatively (loans with obligations to buy, performance-based payment structures, co-ownership arrangements).

The supporter conversations about transfer targets routinely under-appreciate this constraint. The named players who could realistically be acquired are generally not the named players that get most discussed.

What I’d hope for

Three concrete summer outcomes that would represent a successful window:

A starting-quality centre back acquired at a fee in the realistic range, who can step into the first-team partnership and produce eight months of consistent contribution.

A reliable centre forward in the 18-22 goals per season range, even if not a marquee name, who provides the central attacking focal point that has been missing.

Stability in the technical and coaching staff, with a coherent strategic direction for the next two seasons that gives the squad and the supporters something to invest in beyond the constant short-term reactivity that has characterised recent years.

If those three things happen, the 2026-27 season has a foundation. If they don’t, we’ll be having similar conversations a year from now, and the cumulative weight of unresolved squad issues will have grown rather than diminished.

Forza Roma.