Roma's excellent finish to the 2015-16 Serie A season has offered hope that coach Luciano Spalletti can build on the progress made since his return to the Italian capital in January and make a run at the title next term.
The Giallorossi collected more points than any other team bar champions Juventus in the second half of the season -- five more than Napoli, who beat them to second place by two points -- and the 83 goals (47 under Spalletti) they scored were the league's highest.
With a few additions to the squad, Spalletti could surely have a good go at closing the 11-point gap between his side and Juventus, but with the club having to find €30 million by the end of June to satisfy UEFA's financial fair play requirements, some valuable players have to go, and one name stands out: Miralem Pjanic.
Roma were fined €6 million in May last year for "non-compliance of FFP break-even regulations," and the fear is that they could be banned from European competition if they fail to balance the books by the June 30 deadline. Pjanic has a €38m buy-out clause that, if met, would wipe out the deficit and leave some money in the transfer kitty. Given that Spalletti wants to bring in Ajax's talented young striker Arkadiusz Milik, Lyon centre-back Samuel Umtiti and Inter Milan's Marcelo Brozovic, Roma need to find some money -- and quickly.
The first step towards that was buying on-loan defender Antonio Rudiger from Stuttgart for €9m, with the aim of selling the German international this summer for around €25m. Meanwhile, Iago Falque, Adem Ljajic, Seydou Doumbia, Antonio Sanabria and Vasilis Torosidis are all up for sale.
Of those, 23-year-old Rudiger will be the biggest miss, as he struck a central defensive partnership with Kostas Manolas that grew in stature as the season went on. But his sale will help finance the €13m purchase of Stephan El Shaarawy from AC Milan -- which has to be completed by June 22, so can't be put off until after the FFP books balancing deadline -- while Roma are also struggling to buy left-back Lucas Digne from Paris Saint-Germain.
PSG want €16m for to make the on-loan Frenchman's move to Rome permanent, but Roma aren't willing to spend more than €11m, meaning that sporting director Walter Sabatini is eyeing Empoli left-back Mario Rui if the Ligue 1 champions continue with their intransigence.
There's also no guarantee the sale of any or even all of the players listed above will generate enough for Spalletti's shopping list, and with the knee injury Edin Dzeko picked up on international duty making his sale less likely, Pjanic is the one player that could make a difference by leaving.
Would his departure be such a bad thing? In purely playing terms, it would be a big blow. The Bosnia & Herzegovina international was Serie A's joint assist leader alongside Paul Pogba with 12 last season, and he's also one of the game's best free kick takers.
Any club looking to win the game's top honours, as Pjanic said he wants to, should think twice before selling their best players, but Roma's hands are tied thanks to the buy-out clause. Luckily they have more than capable backup.
Radja Nainggolan, who has thrived under Spalletti, has no intention of leaving, while Kevin Strootman's confident return from his tortuous knee injury nightmare has given Roma back one of Europe's strongest midfielders. If Daniele De Rossi maintains his improved form, Spalletti still has a powerful midfield that would only be improved by Leandro Paredes, whose impressive performance on loan at Empoli showed that the Argentine is more than ready for Serie A. Should Roma sign 22-year-old Milik, who has scored 47 goals in 75 appearances for Ajax, Diego Perotti could happily slip back into a more conventional No.10 role.
Pjanic is 26 and has been at Roma for five years, arriving from Lyon for €11m. He is approaching the prime of his career and is hungry for trophies -- something that Roma can't guarantee him.
The buy-out clause means they can't decide whether to keep him or not, and the money they would bring in with his sale would help the club finance squad reinforcements and stave off UEFA. It might be time to let go.
