Fiorentina had the opportunity to climb into fifth place, but instead suffered another surprise defeat, beaten 4-0 at home by a clinical Udinese.
This Week 20 fixture was called off on January 6 due to a COVID outbreak in the Udinese squad. Lucas Torreira made a surprisingly rapid recovery to start with Giacomo Bonaventura also returning, but Gaetano Castrovilli out for the season. Beto and Roberto Pereyra remained on the Friulani treatment table with Nehuen Perez suspended.
Marco Silvestri had to make a save within 120 seconds, using his leg to deny Krzysztof Piatek at the near post, then had his gloves stung by Nico Gonzalez after a dummy that sent two defenders to ground.
However, Udinese broke the deadlock with Pablo Marì, who pounced on a double poor clearance and pretended to roll across for Isaac Success, instead blasting into the near top corner from a tricky angle.
Fiorentina tried to pour forward, but left themselves wide open at the back, conceding a second with a classic counter-attack. Destiny Udogie sprinted away and his strike was parried by Pietro Terracciano into the path of Gerard Deulofeu for 2-0.
Silvestri again smothered from Piatek and Cristiano Biraghi volleyed off target, while Alvaro Odriozola didn’t get enough power on a possible tap-in from Biraghi’s deflected cross.
Vincenzo Italiano was not happy and made a triple substitution at half-time. It shook them up, as Silvestri made a desperate reaction save on the line from Torreira’s header and an Arthur Cabral tap-in from a corner.
Deulofeu also threatened a third on the counter, his angled drive parried by an outstretched leg, but Silvestri acrobatically flew to fingertip a Youssef Maleh strike out from under the bar.
A Lucas Martinez-Quarta header was deflected inches wide, but again Terracciano had to make the save on a Nahuel Molina counter-attack.
Udinese came closest to a third, Destiny Udogie’s header into the ground bouncing up and thumping the back post. After Deulofeu and Molina skimmed the woodwork, the third did arrive with a Walace effort taking a massive deflection off Igor to completely wrong-foot Terracciano.
It still wasn’t over, the last kick of the game saw Jean-Victor Makengo burst down the left and roll across for Udogie to tap in.
This was Fiorentina’s fourth home defeat of the Serie A season, but crucially their second loss in a row after the 2-1 visit to Salernitana.
Fiorentina 0-4 Udinese
Pablo Marì 12 (U), Deulofeu 36 (U), Walace 91 (U), Udogie 95 (U)
Hard to believe they’d be in the hunt for the top 4 of they’d won their last 2.
Bad attitude and lack of talent.