Roma Auditioning Free Agents Buchel and Rodwell for Midfield Role

At this point, we can probably recite Roma’s list of wounded midfielders like it was some prayer we may have learned in Sunday school as children, so I'll spare you the horror of a full recounting. Suffice it to say, we are in the midst of a midfield crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen Panagiotis Tachtsidis and Michael Bradley actually stole playing time from Daniele De Rossi and Miralem Pjanic.

But you know what they say: desperate times call for desperate measures. And these are indeed desperate times for Roma's midfield. With the winter transfer window still many, many weeks away, Roma are reportedly dipping into the free agent market for some immediate help.

Yesterday word broke that Roma were honing in on 28-year-old English midfield Jack Rodwell, who, in addition to having a name akin to a 19th century bare-knuckle boxer, has been without a club all season. Rodwell has had stints with Everton, Manchester City, Sunderland and Blackburn. In addition to roaming the midfield, Rodwell has experience playing in central defense, so he'd kill two enormous birds with one stone.

But...he's not the only unemployed footballer Roma are currently pursuing. According to the Corriere dello Sport (link via Football Italia), the Giallorossi are bringing in 28-year-old Liecthenstein midfielder Marcel Buchel for a medical examination. Buchel, who has played all over Italy for clubs ranging from Empoli to Hellas Verona to Cremonese, has not made a first team senior appearance since the 2017-2018 season with Hellas Verona.

Like we said, desperate times.

On the surface it would seem that Rodwell is the obvious choice, given his greater depth of experience and tactical versatility, but we won't know which way Roma is leaning until the rose ceremony concludes at some point over the next day or so.