Vidal and Pogba. Here we have two world class players that are young, cost us nothing and on low wages which is the most we could ever dream of. Apart from these two, we have about 3 world class players all of which are pretty old (Buffon, Barzagli, Pirlo) and four borderline world class players that are 30 (chiellini, tevez, llorente, licht). The younger players are average to above average (marchisio, asamoah, bonnuci, cacares) and so our future should be built around vidal and pogba. Everyone else is either retiring, about to decline or not worldclass.
Our situation is that our best players are either too old or are going to be sold and we will need to spend a lot to stay at the same level that we are at now let alone surpass it.
Can the projected increase in our profits and consequently in our purchasing power make up the losses of cheap world class players that we are about to lose old age? Will we be able to keep up with Roma whose core is a lot younger than ours? Lets look at Roma.
Roma are about to lose (within 2-3 years) De Sanctis, Maicon, Cole, Balzaretti, keita, borriello, totti and De Rossi to old age. By lose I mean either retirement or significant decline. Of all those players, Maicon, Cole, totti and De rossi are players that they rely on. De sanctis can be replaced for peanuts. Cole and Maicon will need some $$ to replace while Totti and De Rossi will be very expensive to replace.
On the other hand they have Iturbe,ljajic and Destro in attack two of which are very promising and with many years ahead of them. Roma's attack is safe for years to come. In midfield they have Florenzi, Pjanic, Strootman and Radja who are all young too. I think if Roma keeps performing at this level then Strootman and Pjanic will be their Vidal and Pogba... namely best two players that cost nothing and everyone wants. They'll be left with Radja, Florenzi and probably an old de-rossi which is better than what we'll have left.
In defense they'll have Castan, Manolas, and Astori which is not better than Bonnuci, old chiellini, and ogbonna. They'll be as screwed for fullback and goal keeper as we will be.
To conclude, in two to three years Roma will have a better squad than ours but we should have higher purchasing power. They have the better coach but we'll have more money. Our extra money will come from our superior profitability and from the fact that Pogba+Vidal should bring us much more cash than Pjanic and Strootman should bring Roma. We have much more key players to replace though.
I think it is very likely they will overcome us for a while until our transition is complete. My only hope is that someone snatches Garcia from their hands (PSG or something) and that will slow them down big time.
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