AS Roma coach defiant despite home loss to Basel

AS Roma coach Claudio Ranieri was in defiant mood despite his team suffering a humiliating 3-1 home defeat to unfancied FC Basel in the Champions League.

Roma now face a fight to make the knock-out rounds as they are level on three points after three games with both Basel and Romanians CFR Cluj, but with one less home game to come.

Ranieri is not giving up the fight, insisting that anything can still happen behind runaway Group E leaders Bayern Munich, who have a maximum nine points.

And the former Chelsea, Juventus and Valencia boss ruled out any possibility of him throwing in the towel.

“The fact that we’re not playing like last year is not because of a lack of preparation,” he insisted.

“We started badly, our approach was bad, we were too far apart and disjointed.

“When we had the ball we tried to decide the game on our own. It wasn’t what we saw against Genoa (a 2-1 win on Saturday).

“Basel have good ball retention, we saw that last year when they won there and although they lost here 2-1, they missed two great chances, this time they took them.”

As for standing down, Ranieri was adamant.

“No I won’t, I’m waiting for the team to react. I asked them how they could play like this after the good game against Genoa.

“Obviously we were playing at home and we wanted to win to take a step forward.

“All three teams are on the same points so we have to go and win in Basel. They won here so nothing has been compromised.

“I don’t think we’re outsiders even if at home we haven’t done anything good.

“Football can be so strange that things can change. We must stay positive and do what we haven’t managed to do so far.”

And he brushed off the jeers aimed at him after the final whistle.

“That’s football. I think the team are still behind me or they wouldn’t have played the second-half.

“It’s normal when things go badly that fans aren’t happy and want to change the coach.”

Alexander Frei opened the scoring for the Swiss before Marco Borriello equalised.

Ghanaian full-back Samuel Inkoom gave Basel the lead again before half-time and substitute Cabral wrapped things up in stoppage time at the end of the game.

For Basel’s German coach Thorsten Fink, a winner in this competition with Bayern in 2001, it was vindication for his bold pre-match predictions of victory.

“We maintained the promise we made yesterday so I’m very happy of course,” he said.

“We also had a bit of luck in the first 20 minutes, then we showed we’re a dangerous team.

“We showed the right effort, I’m happy with the fight we showed, we deserved to win.

“Roma were obviously dangerous on occasions but we tried to win.

“We showed we’re a good team, it was very important to win to progress and be in a good position.

“Of course we made many mistakes but obviously against a team like Roma it’s difficult to be organised.

“There were times we were at risk of conceding an equaliser, but once we scored the second goal I felt victory was close.

“I knew I had a good team and that Roma weren’t in great form, even if we’re not 100 percent effective at the moment, I was sure we’d win.

“Now second place is in our hands, we’ve definitely got quality but it will be difficult.”