AS Roma’s Biggest Challenges in the 2025/26 Season

Roma has started 2025/26 with the sort of tension the club has always thirsted for-they are not chasing relevance, they are chasing a title. A 3-1 win away to Cremonese, goals from Matias Soule, Evan Ferguson, and Wesley França lifted Roma to the top of Serie A on 27 points from 12 games, two clear of Milan and ahead of Inter and Napoli. The Friedkin ownership has its team exactly where it wanted, but that position brings its own difficulties. Under Gian Piero Gasperini, the coming months will be defined as much by how Roma manages those challenges as by any single result.

A New Era Under Gasperini

The biggest shift of the summer came on the bench. On 6 June 2025, Roma appointed Gian Piero Gasperini as head coach on a three-year deal, with Claudio Ranieri moving upstairs into an advisory role. Gasperini arrives with a reputation built at Atalanta for turning mid-budget squads into Champions League regulars through intensity and tactical complexity. Early analyses of his work in Rome describe a side that is aggressive at the Stadio Olimpico yet capable of dropping into a compact shell away from home, relying on quick transitional attacks. The challenge is cultural as much as tactical: a club used to changing coaches must now commit to a system that demands trust, repetition, and physical sacrifice.

Making the 3-4-2-1 Work Every Week

Gasperini’s Roma has already shown the outlines of his preferred structures. Tactical breakdowns of the September derby against Lazio and subsequent league games reveal a 3-4-2-1 or 3-4-3 formation, featuring three centre-backs, attack-minded wing-backs, and two narrow-attacking midfielders who press aggressively between the lines. That structure delivered, in the words of local analysts, Roma’s most fluid display of the season in their win over Cremonese, with several starters absent and still managing to overwhelm the hosts. The problem is sustainability: this is a highly demanding setup, and even Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta teams have on occasion collapsed under similar three-games-per-week regimes. If Roma are to stay in the title race into May, they must keep the press sharp without breaking their own legs.

New Faces, New Hierarchies in Attack

Roma’s summer transfer window rebuilt the attack almost on the fly. The club brought in Evan Ferguson on loan from Brighton, Leon Bailey on loan from Aston Villa, and Brazilian wing-back Wesley França from Flamengo, alongside left-back Kostas Tsimikas and goalkeeper Devis Vásquez. Ferguson’s first goal for Roma was also his first in thirteen months at any club. The match was against Cremonese. He became the first Irishman to score a Serie A goal since Liam Brady, back in 1985. On loan from Juventus, Matías Soule is both the league’s leading scorer and the top scorer for his team so far this season. He has proven himself indispensable as their creative hub. Whether this turns out to be an attack with a coherent soul or just a bunch of interesting parts will depend on how minutes, egos, and roles between Soule, Ferguson, Bailey, Wesley, and established forwards like Paulo Dybala and Artem Dovbyk are balanced.

Balancing Serie A, Europa League and Coppa Italia

Roma’s biggest structural challenge is simply the calendar. The club’s 2025/26 season includes Serie A, the Coppa Italia, and the new league-phase format of the UEFA Europa League. Early results show how thin the margins will be: all of Roma’s defeats so far have been tight 1–0 losses, including home reverses to Torino and Inter in Serie A, as well as Lille and Viktoria Plzeň in Europe. At the same time, controlled 2–0 wins over Verona, Udinese, and Rangers point to a side capable of managing game states when fresh. Gasperini must decide where to spend his strongest line-ups: chasing a first Scudetto since 2001 or pursuing a Europa League run that would boost Roma’s coefficient and prestige.

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Keeping Dybala and the Veterans Healthy

Roma’s dressing room is anchored by players who know both glory and fragility. Paulo Dybala, now in his early thirties with a contract running to 2026, remains one of Serie A’s most gifted playmakers but has a history of muscle injuries that limit how often he can start three matches in a week. Stephan El Shaarawy, also in his thirties, and other senior figures lend the squad a spine of experience, but they require careful load management. In Cremona, Roma produced their best attacking display of the season without Dybala or Dovbyk, a sign that the younger forwards can carry more of the weekly burden. This will come down to whether the coaching staff has the discipline to avoid overusing him routinely in league games, but rather time his involvement for decisive fixtures between having one more tired spring again versus actually getting a shot at it.

All of this unfolds in a city where football is never quiet. Roma’s climb to the top of the table has amplified expectations that already grew under the Friedkin Group’s ownership and Frederic Massara’s sporting direction.