Juventus scraped a victory over Fiorentina with Adrien Rabiot’s header, which was over the line by inches, but those tiny margins also saw Dusan Vlahovic and Gaetano Castrovilli goals disallowed.

Federico Chiesa and Dusan Vlahovic started against their former club in a new super trident with Angel Di Maria, but Arkadiusz Milik, Fabio Miretti, Juan Cuadrado, Leonardo Bonucci, Paul Pogba and Kaio Jorge were injured. The Viola had Igor and Rolando Mandragora suspended, plus Antonin Barak out with a stomach bug, picking up just one point from their last four Serie A games.

Check the full line-ups and statistics from Juventus-Fiorentina here.

Adrien Rabiot was booked for going through the back of Nico Gonzalez within 30 seconds, then Gleison Bremer had to make a desperate clearance when a corner fell to Christian Kouame in the six-yard box.

Angel Di Maria’s attempt was deflected to the back post, where Filip Kostic volleyed across the face of goal from a couple of yards.

Chiesa’s cross wreaked havoc from the right, going just beyond Vlahovic and then finding Kostic to test Pietro Terracciano at the back post.

Manuel Locatelli’s shot was deflected wide from the edge of the area, but Juve broke through when Di Maria floated a ball to the far stick for the head of Rabiot. Terracciano made the save, but not before the ball had completely crossed the line.

Fiorentina had a double chance to equalise denied by Locatelli, who first made an acrobatic clearance, then on the ground stuck up a leg to deflect Jonathan Ikone’s strike over the bar.

Straight after the restart, Nico Gonzalez just failed to get on the end of two taut crosses from the right.

Juve thought they’d doubled their lead on the hour mark when Locatelli and then Kostic threaded through to release Vlahovic, beating the on-rushing Terracciano with a calm, dinked finish. The former Fiorentina striker made clear he did not wish to celebrate, but after a minute the news came through from VAR that it was ruled offside by a matter of millimetres by the SAOT.

Ikone blasted over and Giacomo Bonaventura risked a second yellow for barging into Rabiot, then substitute Moise Kean was denied a goal on Dodo’s howler by a desperate Terracciano save, also hitting a fresh-air shot from six yards on the resulting corner.

Sofyan Amrabat fired straight at Wojciech Szczesny, while Luka Jovic’s glancing header whistled just wide.

There was chaos on 88 minutes when Locatelli cleared Riccardo Saponara’s cross to the edge of the box, where Gaetano Castrovilli thumped it low and hard into the far bottom corner. Juve players were furious, wanting it disallowed for Luca Ranieri’s foul on Locatelli, but instead the VAR on-field review decided Ranieri was offside and interfering with play as he had both arms around Locatelli’s shoulders and prevented a better clearance.

Juventus 1-0 Fiorentina

Rabiot 34 (J)

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