Roma coach Claudio Ranieri is expecting a very hard game against Fulham on Thursday in their Europa League showdown at the Stadio Olimpico.

The Giallorossi, still without star forward Francesco Totti through a knee injury, go into the game third in Group E, one point behind the second-placed Cottagers and two behind leaders Basle with three games remaining.

"Fulham did well against Manchester City and they won convincingly against Liverpool," said Ranieri.

He added: "We expect a difficult game. We knew that would be the case in our first game against them where we managed to come home with a point (from a 1-1 draw)."

Ranieri believes the biggest threat Fulham pose will be on the counter-attack.

"It's going to be complicated because Fulham will try to hit us with fast counter-attacks," he said.

However, the former Chelsea boss hopes his team will cope and improve in the hope of progressing to the next round.

He added: "We have two important games at home and we want to keep going in Europe"

"Of course we are missing the Champions League but that by no means suggests that we don't consider this competition important. We want to go as far as possible in this tournament."