Genoa capped off a brilliant week with a stunning comeback to move up into the top of the table. Qasa Alom reports.

After a crucial win in the derby della lanterna midweek, Genoa scored four second half goals through Rodrigo Palacio and Alberto Paloschi to stun Roma and put the final nail in Claudio Ranieri’s coffin.

The Grifone couldn’t have got off to a worse start though, as Marco Borriello missed an open goal after an Eduardo flap in the 3rd minute! The visitors did eventually take the lead a few minutes later when Phillipe Mexes marked his return to the starting line-up by powering home a Francesco Totti corner in the 6th minute.

Totti repeated the trick 10 minutes later, this time from the left hand side, as his venomous inswinging free kick was flicked on by Nicolas Burdisso to nestle into the far corner and firmly put Roma in a winning position.

Genoa fought back and in their search for a goal, January signing Antonio Floro Flores was unfortunate as his header just skimmed the outside of the post. The home side were leaving gaps at the other end and Marco Borriello’s knock down for an imperious Francesco Totti just went wide.

As half time approached, Genoa were the team in the ascendancy and Floro Flores should have halved the defecit before half time as he was put through one on one with Julio Sergio, but failed to do anything worthy with his shot.

The second half begun in similar fashion, as Floro Flores’s personal duel with the Roma ‘keeper continued, this time Julio Sergio managed to desperately fling out a limb and deny the former Udinese forwards goalbound header. It looked as if Genoa would regret all their misses as Roma scored again in the 51st minute. Totti brought the ball forward and played through Borriello on the left of the box. The former Genoa striker bided his time before rolling the ball across the box back to Totti, who managed to find a gap and drive the ball in low with his left footed shot; Genoa’s defending was nothing short of abysmal.

Roma have nobody but themselves to blame though for the following half an hour of football that led to one of the biggest comebacks of the season. A long hopeful ball into the box wasn’t dealt with properly and Julio Sergio’s weak parry to the edge of the box found Rodrigo Palacios in plenty of space to compose himself and steer the ball into the goal and hand the home side a lifeline.

The away side were in complete disarray with players bumping into each other, slipping and sliding all over the field and Floro Flores continued his one man assault to get ahead of his marker and clip the ball past Julio Sergio…but sadly wide of the far post.

Gasperini needed some more guile and natural finishing ability on the pitch, so turned to highly rated youngster Alberto Paloschi. The Milan owned striker has been named by Filippo Inzaghi as his successor and he showed why within 5 minutes of coming on! Antonio Floro Flores’s clipped ball over the top split Roma’s defense and Paloschi chested the ball down before slotting home with his left foot to raise the Marassi’s decibel levels.

There was simply going to be only one winner now, and Rafinha’s looping cross from the right went over the whole of Roma’s shambolic defense for Palacio to let the ball bounce before heading it back across goal and equalise. The comeback was inevitably completed 5 minutes from time as the Argentinian combined in a smart 1-2 with Criscito to get around the back of the Roma defense and fired across goal for Paloschi to cushion his volley into the open net and leave Roma literally on their knees.

After the game Ranieri immediately offered his resignation and more can be found on that story by fellow writer Julian D here.