Roma Gear Up For Serie A Return, But Lukaku Future Remains A Headline

With the end of the March international break, AS Roma fans can turn their attentions back to manager Daniele De Rossi’s Serie A campaign, and a potential Champions League return if our form levels under the legendary 40 year old former defensive midfielder continue in this manner.

Having come in as Jose Mourinho’s replacement on a caretaker basis back mid January, the change in our fortunes on the pitch was pretty stark and dramatic. Fresh ideas, and more of a fostering team spirit quickly won the players over and got them on side, and they more than begun consistently performing for him.

On a domestic Serie A front, De Rossi has taken charge of nine matches so far during his tenure, picking up seven wins and one draw which has catapulted the side back up the table – hence the renewed hopes of a possible Champions League campaign, and in terms of the Europa League, he has two wins and a draw from his opening four matches and we are looking forward to April’s double header against AC Milan in the quarter finals of the competition and odds like these from bestbettingsites.co.uk may be of interest to those who like a flutter.

Fans will be hoping that we pick up where we left off when we face Lecce in our next game, and as our preparations continue for that clash and we begin to step them up, De Rossi has already welcomed back four international players to training.

On Wednesday, Italian Gianluca Mancini, Under 21s Tommaso Baldanzi and Edoardo Bove, and Ivory Coast’s Evan Ndicka all returned to our training ground sessions. Ndicka, of course, received a provisional call up for the games against Benin and Uruguay but he had to withdraw on a precautionary basis with a minor injury scare. He has now fully recovered over the last few weeks and is now back with the first team.

Having been in action in Tuesday’s rounds of games, the likes of Romelu Lukaku ad Nicola Zalewski with return later in the week, but from De Rossi’s point of view, the more he can welcome back the better, as there are lingering doubts that we might be missing the services of several, such as Paulo Dybala, Leonardo Spinazzola and Renato Sanches to just name three.

As for 30 year-old Lukaku, although he did not score for Belgium in their 2-2 draw with England at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday night, he put in a very strong performance and provided the assist for Youri Tielemans’ second goal in the match.

After his season for us, he was asked after the game whether or not he was trying to impress in England, and the striker quickly, and cheekily, responded with ‘ask Chelsea!’.

This is undoubtedly only going to add fuel to the fire when it comes to speculation about his future. Everyone knows we would love him to remain at the Stadio Olimpico, but equally his loan agreement with us does not contain any kind of purchase option, so that is something that will have to be sorted out in the coming months.

Given Chelsea’s own phenomenal spending in recent years, and not all of it wise, the next question is, even surplus to requirements, what valuation do they hold on him and could we meet it.

If they are in the financial trouble many speculate, when they look simply at in and out transfer spend, Chelsea will maximise his valuation and it is less likely we would get a more favourable ‘get him off the books deal’ unless we were the only interested party.

His 2023/24 form suggests we would not be the only interested party.

It could be an interesting summer for more than one reason.