Ivan Juric’s Roma Dismissal Underlines the Scale of the Toughest Job in the Eternal City

A penny, then, for Jose Mourinho’s thoughts. Ten months after sacking the Portuguese, Roma again find themselves in the market for a new manager, as Ivan Juric’s ill-fated spell in the Eternal City was cut short on Sunday.

Dispensing with Mourinho in January felt like catharsis. Out went the exhausting feuds – with referees, rivals and even his own players – and in came Daniele De Rossi, a club legend adored by the Curva Sud.

De Rossi’s appointment immediately paid dividends, with the Giallorossi winning six of his first seven Serie A matches in charge – the only defeat came against eventual champions Inter Milan – after winning just twice in Mourinho’s last seven games.

Roma faded down the stretch and missed out on Champions League qualification for the sixth consecutive season, though they did reach the semi-finals of the Europa League.

When the club owners, the Friedkin Group, extended De Rossi’s contract through to 2027 in June there were few dissenters.

But just three months after signing a new deal, De Rossi was gone after picking up just three points in the opening four Serie A matches of the season.

On Sunday his successor followed him through the exit door after a fourth defeat in the past five league outings. Roma won just three Serie A matches under Juric and are 12th in the table, 12 points off the Champions League places. When Mourinho was sacked in January, his team were ninth in Serie A, five points off a Champions League spot.

The Europa League picture is similarly bleak, with the Giallorossi already four points adrift of the automatic qualification places with just five points after four matches.

“We would like to thank Ivan Juric for his hard work over the past few weeks,” Roma said in a statement on Sunday.

“He handled a difficult environment with the utmost professionalism, and for that we are grateful. We wish him all the best for his future.”

Describing Roma as a very difficult environment is a curious choice of words from the club, a not-so-tacit recognition the season lies in ruins before the Panettone has even been served.

Roma’s malaise is all the more remarkable when one considers that in August De Rossi suggested his team could be challenging for the Scudetto. 

After operating on a tight budget for years, the Giallorossi were finally allowed to loosen the purse strings and did so with abandon.

Roma spent almost €100m (£82m) to sign Artem Dovbyk from Girona, where he was LaLiga’s top scorer last season with 24 goals, Juventus starlet Matías Soulé and Rennes midfielder Enzo Le Fée.

The need to balance the books meant Rui Patrício and Leonardo Spinazzola were allowed to run down their contracts and leave on free transfers. Further reductions to the wage bill came as loans for Romelu Lukaku, Renato Sanches, Diego Llorente and Rasmus Kristensen all expired.

Paulo Dybala, Roma’s highest earner, was also expected to leave the Eternal City in the summer but stayed put after rejecting a move to Saudi Arabia.

De Rossi was adamant he wanted to make Roma more dynamic and instructed new sporting director Florent Ghisolfi to sign players accordingly.

The case for a fresh start was evident. Under Mourinho, Roma had on average the third-oldest starting XI in Serie A. On the opening day against Cagliari, they fielded the fifth-youngest.

But De Rossi had precious little time to implement his vision before he was relieved of his duties.

Francesco Totti, a man who knows a thing or two about Roman machinations, had warned his former teammate would pay the price following the Giallorossi’s slow start.  

“If things don’t go well, everything falls on Daniele,” Totti told Roman daily Il Messaggero days before De Rossi’s sacking. 

“It’s the same thing that happened to Mourinho, because Jose put his face forward. Nobody helped him. Nobody spoke.”

Juric, too, may feel help wasn’t forthcoming during his two months in charge. The Croatian went unbeaten in his first three games in charge, but he was a bizarre choice to replace De Rossi from the off.

Juric immediately discarded his predecessor’s 4-3-3 in favour of his preferred 3-4–2-1, but the shift did not bear any tangible change.

Having scored just twice in four matches under De Rossi, they netted 12 in eight under his successor, but remain over-reliant on Dovbyk.

The Ukrainian is the club’s leading goalscorer with six goals, with Dybala and Stephan El Sharaawy the only other players to score more than one in Serie A this season.

Roma’s struggles in front of goal have been exacerbated by a defence that has conceded 15 goals in eight games under Juric after keeping two clean sheets in the first four Serie A outings of the season.

Speaking after the 3-2 defeat against Bologna, Ghisolfi seemed to accept Juric had been an odd fit for the club. 

“Ivan’s style of play is extremely demanding physically, but we can’t use that as an excuse now,” he said. “We’re in a tough spot and we need to own up to our mistakes. We apologise to our fans who are going through a difficult time. This is on all of us.”

Roma’s ultras had reached the same verdict hours earlier.

“Everyone is complicit, everyone is guilty,” read one of the banners in the Curva Sud.

Mourinho may be gone, but Rome still burns.