AS Roma midfielder Marten de Roon has appeared in just one of the club's two Serie A matches this season, earning a rating of 6.30 as Gian Piero Gasperini's side opened the 2026-27 campaign with consecutive victories and a perfect six points — eight goals scored, none conceded.
The numbers around de Roon tell a story of a player operating at the edge of a rotation rather than its centre. At 35, he carries an AI overall of 73 out of 100, a figure that reflects functional value without suggesting a player still commanding automatic selection. One appearance from two available matches is not a crisis, but it is a signal worth reading carefully in the context of a Gasperini system that has always demanded high-intensity pressing and positional discipline from its midfielders.
What makes de Roon's situation particularly interesting is the backdrop against which it unfolds. Roma sit top of the early Serie A table, which means Gasperini has little immediate pressure to alter a winning formula. That very stability, however, is what makes de Roon's path back into the starting eleven narrow. Coaches rarely disrupt a clean sheet in the first two matches of a season, and with eight goals already scored, the attacking machinery is clearly functioning.
The 6.30 rating from his single outing is serviceable rather than decisive — enough to suggest he contributed without asserting himself as indispensable. For a player of his experience, that distinction matters. De Roon has long been valued for his positional intelligence and his ability to break up opposition build-up, qualities that age more gracefully than pace or explosive pressing.
For now, de Roon is a veteran presence in a squad that is winning comfortably without leaning on him heavily. The question is not whether he belongs — a player of his profile earns that much — but whether the role he occupies will expand before the season finds its real shape.