New-look Roma set their goals

Newly appointed sporting director Walter Sabatini has outlined his extensive plans to overhaul Roma under American owner Thomas DiBenedetto.

The 56-year-old former Roma midfielder was appointed sporting director at the Serie A club last month following the takeover of a consortium led by DiBenedetto.

Sabatini and new head coach Luis Enrique have been charged with securing Roma’s first league championship since 2001.

But the former Lazio director, who resigned from his position at Palmero in November 2010, refused to put a timescale on when the team will challenge for the Scudetto.

“I don’t like to talk about projects as they don’t exist in football. All that exists is working on a daily basis,” Sabatini said.

“We know what we want to do and we’ll do it. Di Benedetto wants to win the championship and he says we will, but that won’t happen straight away.”

Sabatini has opted to recruit former Spanish international Enrique to take charge of first-team affairs following his successful tenure as coach of Barcelona’s B team.

“We got Luis Enrique because we want to play a different type of football. It’s something new and a courageous choice, but a choice that I would make again,” Sabatini said.

“We monitored dozens of coaches, including the likes of (Jurgen) Klopp … (Stefano) Pioli and (Marco) Giampaolo – all of whom are excellent, but Luis Enrique accepted and he was our first choice.”

“He is not inferior to Porto’s (Andre) Villas Boas.”

Enrique and Sabatini are set to undertake an overhaul of the Roma squad, with new faces likely at the Stadio Olimpico next season.

“Luis is very happy with the squad as it is now, although it is obvious that he has asked for changes,” Sabatini said.

“The problem for Roma is not the value of the players, but the age of them. We’ll look to lower the average age of the side.”

“I’ve not been given a budget, I’ve been given a freedom to work on the market. We’ll talk in the next few days to understand what we can do.”

Roma finished sixth in Serie A last season, with youth coach Vincenzo Montella taking over from Claudio Ranieri as coach in February.