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Roma Boss Keen To Instil Belief Into Squad Ahead Of Liverpool Game

Roma manager Eusebio di Francesco believes his side can still turn the complexion of their Champions League semi-final tie against Liverpool. The Capital outfit succumbed to a 5-2 defeat to the Reds in the first leg at Anfieldbut Di Francesco remains optimistic that his side can turn things around at the Stadio Olimpico. Speaking after the weekend win over Chievo, he said: "We have to recover our physical and mental energy, leave the pitch on Wednesday knowing we've done all we possibly could. We've proved in the past that we can achieve great results in the Champions League, so we must all believe."

The Giallorossi produced one of the best comebacks of the Champions League during the quarter-final stage where they recovered from a similar deficit against the mighty Barcelona. However, repeating a similar feat is unlikely to be easy for the Italian side, who looked out of sorts when Mohamed Salah was on the field last week.

Despite knowing his traits, Roma struggled to find a stop to his movement on the night and this saw the Egyptian produced run them ragged with two goals and two assists. Di Francesco’s side have not conceded in any of their home Champions League games this term but they nevertheless have a huge task on their hands to restrict the Reds from scoring.

Unlike other clubs, Liverpool have possessed the threat from Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino aside from Salah and restricting the threat of the trio would surely present a huge load for a team, who had a testing encounter against Chievo. Roma won the league game by a comfortable 4-1 score line on Saturday but they had to put in the extra yards in the second half after defender Juan Jesus was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 55th minute.