Roma do enough as Fiorentina’s free fall continues

Date: 20th December 2019 at 10:43pm
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STADIO ARTEMIO FRANCHI (Florence) – Vincenzo Montella’s Fiorentina misery was compounded on Friday evening as a 3-1 defeat saw Roma return to the capital with all three points.

Pressure continues to mount on the Viola boss and his position is looking more and more at risk with each passing week, now possibly facing a pre-Christmas dismissal as he’s led his side through seven consecutive winless games in Serie A.

It was a lacklustre performance from the hosts and the Giallorossi didn’t even have to be at their best to collect the points, despite just one goal separating them for around 40 minutes.

Fiorentina did actually enjoy the brighter start and last week’s last-gasp hero Dusan Vlahovic was central. The Serb had a freekick first that he sent just over Pau Lopez’s goal.

Then he came close to getting on the end of fine through ball before finally having the ball in the net only to be thwarted by the offside flag.

But their quarter of an hour passed and Roma took advantage of their first chance. Lorenzo Pellegrini kept the ball for fun on the edge of the Viola area before dinking it over the top to Nicolo Zaniolo who centred to Edin Dzeko to finish a well-worked but simple goal.

It was two moments later. German Pezzella fouled on the edge of the area, presenting Aleksandar Kolarov with a chance he wasn’t going to pass up. The left-back perfectly dispatched his freekick over the wall and into Bartlomiej Dragowski’s top corner, showing his young countryman Vlahovic how to make the most of a set piece.

The hosts were lucky to not be three behind. The entirety of their defence stood watching as a stray ball in the area was pounced upon by Zaniolo but his effort on the turn was straight at Dragowski.

Milan Badelj handed Montella a lifeline by halving the deficit. A loose ball came his way in the box and he had time to calmly slot past Pau.

Pau had to be alert to intercept a sublime slipped through ball from Gaetano Castrovilli, taking it off Erick Pulgar’s toe in the area.

Roma had their own chance go begging as Alessandro Florenzi teased a ball across the six-yard box that none of the arriving players in white could get on the end of.

Pellegrini slotted in a third for Roma with just over 15 minutes to play. Dzeko teed him up on the edge of the box and he simply passed the ball into the bottom corner.

There was time for things to worsen further and Zaniolo completed the scoring in the 88th minute, breaking free on the right and slotting into the corner.

Vlahovic’s aim improved slightly from close-range freekicks and he thumped the bar with another in stoppage time.

 

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