Ranieri relieved as Roma get off the mark

Claudio Ranieri was relieved to see AS Roma bounce back from an opening loss to FC Bayern München by claiming maximum points at home to a CFR 1907 Cluj side who were left lamenting the chances which got away.

Claudio Ranieri, Roma coach
I'm satisfied with our performance, but even happier with the victory because we had to win after losing to Bayern. I think we put in a strong performance even if we were lucky when [Lacina] Traoré hit the bar. He's a dangerous young forward but fortunately he opted to shoot when he had a team-mate unmarked in front of the goal. We knew CFR would play like this, defending and using the counterattack, so I wasn't happy that we gifted them three clear chances and it was bad to concede when the game was all but over.

Borriello scored a great goal. He was very important for us when he came on because we needed a target man up front at that stage and he did his job perfectly. Roma have typically played with just one striker in the past so we have to adapt to a new system with more forwards but we are improving.

Sorin Cârţu, CFR Cluj coach
Before the game I told my players that we weren't going to get many chances to score against opponents of this calibre, and that when we did we had to use them in the best possible way. We managed the first thing and were dangerous on a number of occasions – unfortunately we just weren't clinical enough when it mattered.

At such a high level when you miss such golden scoring opportunities you get punished. We hit the post; they scored. That's football and generally speaking Roma deserved to win even if we played well. If we had scored with our first chance, or in the 6th minute when we hit the woodwork, the outcome of the match would have been different. The way we played today proved we were capable of achieving positive results.