Serie A | Cremonese 1-4 Fiorentina: Viola quality wins relegation battle

Fiorentina made a big step forward in their pursuit of Serie A safety with this 4-1 victory away to Cremonese, including classy Dodo and Albert Gudmundsson goals.

This was a huge and potentially decisive relegation tussle, as going into the weekend the Viola were in 17^th place on 25 points and the hosts in 18^th on 24. Moise Kean was only fit for the bench, with Niccolò Fortini, Manor Solomon, Luca Lezzerini and Tariq Lamptey injured after Thursday’s 2-1 Conference League first leg win over Rakow. Cremonese missed Jamie Vardy, Federico Baschirotto, Michele Collocolo and suspended Giuseppe Pezzella, scraping only four points in the last 14 games, scoring just four goals in that period.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

David De Gea needed a big save after 120 seconds, as a corner was put back in over the top for Federico Bonazzoli to test the goalkeeper from six yards.

Youssef Maleh threw himself in the path of an acrobatic Rolando Mandragora volley, but Fiorentina took the lead when Fabiano Parisi got down the right on a Mandragora pass and his angled drive took a deflection off Romano Floriani Mussolini to go through Emil Audero’s legs at the near post.

The second goal came from a Robin Gosens through ball that allowed Roberto Piccoli to spring the offside trap, beating the on-rushing Audero from a tricky angle.

Fiorentina added a third straight after the restart, as Dodo started the run from his own half, shrugged off Floriani Mussolini, then rolled the ball off the underside of the right boot to send both Maleh and Audero to ground, calmly stroking it into the net with his left.

Cremonese did get one back with only their fifth goal in the last 15 Serie A games, as Ceccherini pulled it back from the right for substitute David Okereke to slide in with the finish from 10 yards. It was a great moment for the striker, who had been frozen out of the squad for months and only made his return last week.

Audero ran a big risk moments later when playing out from the back, harassed into an error by Parisi, but made up for it by flying to fingertip a Mandragora curler out from under the bar.

Cremonese very nearly got it back to 2-3 when Okereke’s glancing header on a corner was cleared off the line by Nicolò Fagioli.

Alberto Grassi also came sliding in to meet a Djuric knockdown and couldn’t steer it on target at the back post.

Instead, Fiorentina restored their three-goal advantage with another goal of great quality. Gosens sent Marco Brescianini down the left, he back-heeled it for Piccoli, who in turn heeled it into the path of Gudmundsson to sweep in first-time with the inside of the right boot.

Gosens still showed bravery throwing himself in the path of a Djuric header before Alessio Zerbin could tap in at the back post, crashing into the upright with his ribs.

Cremonese 1-4 Fiorentina

Parisi 25 (F), Piccoli 32 (F), Dodo 49 (F), Okereke 57 (C), Gudmundsson 70 (F)