Roma v Fulham:ROMA COACH Claudio Ranieri is expecting a very hard game against Fulham this evening at the Stadio Olimpico. The Giallorossi, still without forward Francesco Totti through a knee injury, go into the game third in Group E, one point behind second-placed Fulham and two behind leaders Basle with three games remaining.

Fulham arrive in the Italian capital on the back of a 3-1 win over Liverpool in the Premier League and Ranieri knows his team will be put to the test. He said: “Fulham did well against Manchester City and they won convincingly against Liverpool. We expect a difficult game.

“It’s going to be complicated because Fulham will try to hit us on fast counter-attacks. We have two important games at home and we want to keep going in Europe.”

Roma will be without injured pair Juan and Nicolas Burdisso but Mirko Vucinic has recovered from a muscular injury and is set to lead the attack alongside Julio Baptista.

Fulham manager Roy Hodgson knows the importance of the match for both his team and Roma. “I expect Basle to win tomorrow,” he said. “That means that whoever loses tomorrow at the Stadio Olimpico will have a difficult task to progress. I think in order for us to go through to the next round, we will need to finish with nine or 10 points.”

Fulham’s Damien Duff (Achilles), Danny Murphy (knee) and Andrew Johnson (shoulder) will miss the game, although Dickson Etuhu could feature after recovering from a knee injury.