Roma vs Novara preview - Roma boss issues rallying call

Posted Sunday, April 01, 2012 by PA

Roma coach Luis Enrique has told his players they must move on quickly from the disappointment of last weekend's 2-1 defeat at AC Milan if they are to retain their European ambitions.

The Eternal City giants host Novara on Sunday with a seven-point gap between them and the last Champions League place and know time is running out to bridge that margin with nine games left to play.

Their hopes of doing that were, however, dealt a blow last weekend as they conceded their 11th loss of the campaign at the San Siro which left them in sixth place.

"We cannot look back," Luis Enrique said.

"We must now turn the page, and think of the match against Novara.

"We have to try to win our remaining games and I'm optimistic we can do well."

The Romans suffered a blow ahead of Sunday's match with in-form striker Fabio Borini ruled out for three weeks with a muscular injury.

Borini, who is Roma's joint-top scorer alongside Daniel Osvaldo with nine league goals so far, will miss his team's next three Serie A games.

They are also without injured defenders Juan, Nicolas Burdisso and Marco Cassetti and, to complicate matters for Luis Enrique, defender Gabriel Heinze must serve a one-match ban.

Rivals Novara have collected seven points of a possible nine in their last three games.

Last weekend's goalless draw against Lecce left Novara in 19th place, eight points behind safety with nine games remaining.

Despite their good run of form of late, Novara coach Attilio Tesser expects a stern test on Sunday.

"It's going to be extremely difficult," he said.

"But we have proved in recent weeks that this team is alive.

"We will give our all to bring home a good result."

Novara will have to overcome the absence of the team's top scorer Marco Rigoni, who serves a one-match ban this weekend.

Rigoni has scored seven goals in 28 appearances for Novara so far.