Fulham boss Roy Hodgson was left fuming as some poor referring decisions ultimately cost his brave side a famous victory in the Stadio Olimpico against AS Roma, as they crashed 2-1.

The Cottagers had been unlucky not to beat the Giallorossi at Craven Cottage a fortnight ago, after a late Marco Andreolli effort rescued a dramatic 1-1 draw for Claudio Ranieri's men following Stephen Kelly's sending off.

The return fixture in the Eternal City on Thursday followed a very similar pattern, but on this occasion Fulham's misery was doubled on both fronts.

The away side started well and seemed to catch the Italians by surprise as they played the kind of football that saw them resounding beat Liverpoll 3-1 at the weekend.

Their efforts were rewarded in the 19th minute as good work from Clint Dempsey down the right found Diomansy Kamara in the box, who sidestepped Andreolli before being felled by the defender.

The Senegalinternational picked himself up and slotted home the resulting penalty to give his side the lead and send the 2,000 visiting Fulham fans into raptures.

Just like a fortnight ago Fulham went into the break a goal up, but just as it did in West London all their hard work was to be unravelled in the second period.

Erik Nevland replaced Kamara at half time, but within four minutes of the restart the Norwegian had been harshly given his marching orders by Dutch referee Kevin Blom after a fairly innocuous challenge on Daniele De Rossi.

After that the tempo of the game changed and Roma dominated possession, creating chance after chance until finally they found a way bast Mark Schwarzer.

The goal may have been from a Roma player, or could have been an own goal, but either way it will be credited to Riise after Roma's John Arne fired a trademark left footed strike from the edge of the box, and the ball deflected off his brother Bjorn Helge and past a desparing Schwarzer.

With a sense of inevitability the Serie A side were soon ahead after Rodrigo Taddei's cross from the right found the head of Stefano Okaka Chuka whose header was too powerful for Schwarzer to keep out.

Hodgson's men tried their best to get back level again and substitute Bobby Zamora caused some problems for Andreolli and Phillipe Mexes but an equaliser always seemed too much to ask.

Fulham's misery was compounded in stoppage time when a frustrated tackle by Paul Konchesky on Taddei also caused the referee to produce a straight red card, and again the decision seemed harsh.

The loss leaves Fulham two points off the qualifying spots and realistically needing to beat CSKA Sofia in their next game at Craven Cottage.

The other game in the group saw leaders FC Basle beat Sofia 3-1 at St. Jakob-Park, putting the Swiss side in a great position to go through to the knockout stages.

Goals from Marcos Gelabert and Alexander Frei (2) gave Thorsten Fink's men the win and puts them on nine points, two ahead of Roma and four ahead of Fulham, while CSKA Sofia remain bottom with just a solitary point.

AS Roma (4-4-2): Doni (Sergio 45'); Cassetti, Andreolli, Mexes, Riise; Cicinho (Taddei 45'), Pizarro, De Rossi, Guberti (Menez 66'); Okaka, Baptista

Fulham (4-4-1-1): Schwarzer; Pantsil, Hangeland, Hughes, Konchesky; Riise (Zamora 70'), Etuhu (Baird 77'), Greening, Gera; Dempsey; Kamara (Nevland 45')