The Roman Report — 2 November 2026 – 8 November 2026

There are weeks when you look at this Roma side and feel something close to vertigo — a sense that the ground is shifting beneath Italian football and that, for once, the shift is in our favour. Twenty-eight goals in ten Serie A rounds, a club record matched only by a side that played before the Second World War, fourteen different players on the scoresheet, an average of three goals per game across all competitions, and a 5-0 demolition of Udinese still fresh in the memory. The bookmakers have them second favourites for the Scudetto, behind only Inter. Radio pundits who spent years managing expectation downward are now asking, tentatively but sincerely, whether this is finally the year. And on Tuesday evening, Gian Piero Gasperini takes his side to Old Trafford — a ground that has brought Roma nothing but misery, a 7-1 and a 6-2 among the souvenirs — for a Champions League fourth-matchday fixture that could all but seal a play-off berth. The scale of what is happening here is genuinely difficult to take in, so let us try to take it one piece at a time.

Start with Donyell Malen, because the story of what Gasperini has done with him is the clearest expression of what this entire project means. Fifty-five goals in 116 matches for PSV. Thirty-nine in 132 for Borussia Dortmund. Ten in 46 for Aston Villa. Numbers that tell the story of a fine player who never quite crested the wave. Now, at Roma, he has twenty-two goals in twenty-eight matches, and La Gazzetta dello Sport is placing him alongside the continent's most famous names, ahead of Mbappé, Haaland, Yamal and the freshly crowned Ballon d'Or winner Kane in goals scored across 2026. Gasperini's record with strikers is almost comical in its consistency — Zapata, Muriel, Retegui, Scamacca, Hojlund, all of them transformed — but Malen might be the most dramatic example of all. And then there is Matías Soulé, a player the club reportedly tried to move on over the summer, now flourishing in Dybala's absence as the extra man alongside that attacking monster. Another piece of Gasperini magic, as one correspondent put it, and the phrase does not feel like hyperbole.

What Max Tonetto said on Retesport this week deserves to be taken seriously, because he is not a man prone to empty flattery. He drew a line between this Roma and the side Spalletti built — both with a clear identity, both backed by the club, both willing to stay the course — and he noted that Gasp's great refusal is the refusal to compromise. The Cagliari example is telling: Mancini struggling against Fadera, no change made, the coach accepting the discomfort rather than abandoning the system. That stubbornness is a feature, not a flaw, and it is why the shape of this team feels so consistent from week to week. Tonetto also gave us the most enthusiastic words yet about Emanuele Lulli, calling him a great discovery with sprint, an incredible engine and maturity that is frankly abnormal for his age. Whether he starts at Old Trafford or comes off the bench, the sense from everyone close to the squad is that Gasperini has been growing something important, and patiently. That patience, applied across the whole group, is why fourteen different players have already scored this season, why Daniele Ghilardi's rise from a furious dressing-down in a pre-season friendly to scoring on the road and earning a starting argument with Gianluca Mancini feels organic rather than desperate. A word for Mancini, too: Fabio Petruzzi is right that removing a leader who perfectly interprets Gasperini's demands is not something to do lightly. The two can coexist, and the richness of the selection dilemma is itself a sign of health.

Then there is Bryan Cristante, and I want to defend him here, again, as I have done for years. Three hundred and seventy-three appearances. A goal and an assist in Udine. Gasperini's captain. The man who, in the Corriere dello Sport's memorable phrase, embodies the valuable, often unseen work that makes the difference, a figure whose name sits near Tancredi, Nela and Conti on the all-time appearance list. Yes, he does not have Koné's trickery, and the social media sceptics will always find someone more glamorous to prefer. But every coach who has worked with him, from Fonseca through Mourinho to Gasperini, has found him indispensable, and that tells you more about the player than any online poll ever could. He arrives at Old Trafford — reportedly the only Roma player on the pitch who was also there for that Europa League semi-final defeat — in the form of his life, and alongside Marten de Roon he forms a midfield pairing that is experienced, solid and ready for the occasion.

There is a problem, though, and a good columnist cannot look away from it. Five goals conceded in the first five minutes of the second half this season. One in Udine, where the four-goal cushion offered some mitigation, but the others were not all so comfortable. Last season the same figure was four across the entire campaign. The machine is beautiful, and one cog still needs fixing. You might argue it is a question of mental resilience, a momentary drop in concentration during the transition between halves, and Gasperini will know it. The injury list — Svilar, Koné, Dybala, Pellegrini — has stretched the squad across eight matches in twenty-four days, which explains some of the tiredness, but fatigue does not fully account for a pattern this consistent. Gasperini's reshaping of the return journey, the overnight stay in Manchester before a Wednesday morning departure, is evidence that he is thinking about energy management at every level. The Lulli-and-Ghilardi generation is absorbing minutes that would otherwise fall to established names, and they are absorbing them well, but the depth question will sharpen in January, and the Gabriel Sara murmur from Galatasaray, along with the Alejandro Balde left-back conversation that apparently will not go away, suggests the recruitment team is already asking the same question. The Endrick situation — a loan possibility that now has Wesley and Carlo Ancelotti reportedly as advocates, with serious conversations expected once the winter window approaches — adds a layer of excitement that feels almost too good to be true, and this column has been burned by beautiful rumours before.

What I know for certain is this: Roma head to Old Trafford with their best form of the season behind them, Gollini returning to the ground where he first pulled on a goalkeeper's jersey as a teenager, a side that has been told for weeks by its own history that this particular theatre holds only nightmares, and the kind of collective belief that you cannot manufacture but can only earn through nine months of stubborn, consistent, record-breaking work. Whether Pisilli starts or Mora, whether Balerdi plays or Hermoso, whether Lulli earns his Old Trafford night — those questions will be answered by the time this column reaches you. The bigger question, the one that will linger long after the Manchester trip and the international break that follows, is whether this Roma can hold its nerve across a full season and whether the Friedkins will give Gasperini the January help that every voice on Rome's airwaves is quietly, and not so quietly, requesting. The Scudetto conversation has moved from dream to genuine debate, and that alone is extraordinary. Now they have to keep earning the right to have it.