Serie A | Lecce 1-1 Fiorentina: Big goal keeps slender hope alive

Tiago Gabriel’s equaliser kept hope alive for Lecce and caught Cremonese, but Fiorentina maintained their eight-point cushion from the relegation zone with five rounds to play.

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This was a huge fixture to decide who goes down to Serie B with Verona and Pisa. The Viola beat Crystal Palace on Thursday, but still lost the Conference League quarter-final 4-2 on aggregate. Dodo was suspended for that game, with Albert Gudmundsson and Nicolò Fagioli banned for the previous Serie A win over Lecce, so all returned here, but Moise Kean, Fabiano Parisi, Nicolò Fortini and Tariq Lamptey were still injured. Lecce lost six of their last seven games, missing Francesco Camarda, Riccardo Sottil, Kialonda Gaspar, Sadik Fofana and Medon Berisha.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

It was a very aggressive start from the hosts, as Lassana Coulibaly hit the side-netting, then Robin Gosens was forced off with a left thigh problem, replaced by youth team talent Luis Balbo.

Lecce had a series of corners, including one with Walid Cheddira’s looping header cleared off the line by Fagioli.

Cheddira also failed to make the most of a hard and low Ylber Ramadani cross, with almost all their attacks coming down the right flank.

The first real Fiorentina attack was on 28 minutes, as Wladimiro Falcone flew to parry the Rolando Mandragora screamer from the edge of the box.

It was only a warning, as they took the lead moments later. Mandragora threaded through down the right for Jack Harrison, who cut inside to bend a wonderful left-foot finish into the far corner from 12 yards. Not only was it his first goal for Fiorentina, it ended a drought of over a year in league games.

It should’ve been 2-0 when the Viola went on a rapid counter-attack, Roberto Piccoli sliding onto the Dodo assist from six yards only to prod it inches wide.

A Mandragora header and Oumar Ngom effort were both too weak to really trouble the goalkeepers from promising positions, then Cheddira couldn’t connect with a Lassana Coulibaly cross at the back stick.

Coulibaly also failed to make the most of a Konan N’Dri pull-back after the restart, then there was a mad scramble on another N’Dri assist, this time Marin Pongracic with the crucial block on Coulibaly in the six-yard box.

Ramadani drilled wide, then substitute Lameck Banda’s swerving strike forced a great fingertip save from David De Gea to push it round the far post.

Lecce got their equaliser on the resulting corner, Tiago Gabriel getting in front of Cher Ndour to nod in Antonino Gallo’s set play, ending a three-game drought for his team.

Ndour’s header on a corner moments later was inches over the bar, but Lecce really should’ve gone 2-1 up when Pierotti got it all wrong on the Banda pull-back, ballooning over from six yards.

The hosts threw everything forward in a desperate bid to get all three points, but their inability to convert chances has been a problem all season.

Lecce 1-1 Fiorentina

Harrison 30 (F), Tiago Gabriel 71 (L)