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·21 April 2024

Serie A | Salernitana 0-2 Fiorentina: Kouame kickstart Viola

Christian Kouame and Jonathan Ikone eventually gave reshuffled Fiorentina a 2-0 victory away to Salernitana after several wasted opportunities.

The Viola engaged in massive squad rotation after being forced to extra time in the Conference League quarter-final with Viktoria Plzen on Thursday, and with the second leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Atalanta coming up. Nico Gonzalez, Andrea Belotti, M’Bala Nzola, Lucas Beltran, Giacomo Bonaventura and Pietro Comuzzo were left at home. Vincenzo Italiano fielded no pure strikers, but gave Gaetano Castrovilli his first appearance of the season after knee surgery.

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Salernitana had Lassana Coulibaly suspended, Kostas Manolas, Jerome Boateng, Norbert Gyomber, Giulio Maggiore and Grigoris Kastanos injured. Antonio Candreva marked his 500th Serie A match.

Lorenzo Pirola prevented the Fabiano Parisi pull-back getting tapped in from five yards, while Junior Sambia scuffed the finish when unmarked on a Salernitana corner.

Jonathan Ikone should’ve scored on 41 minutes after a chaotic move with multiple passes inside the penalty area, but fired wide from 10 yards.

Guillermo Ochoa did well to stand strong as Sottil went clear on goal, making the save one-on-one.

Sottil also failed to get there in time to meet the Michael Kayode cross to the back post, with Candreva doing the same on a Junior Sambia assist.

Kouame came off the bench and broke away on the counter-attack, but he too was unable to beat Ochoa one-on-one.

However, the Ivory Coast international – who returned from AFCON with malaria that required him to be hospitalised – made up for it soon after with a towering header to steer the Luca Ranieri cross into the far top corner and finally give Fiorentina the lead.

They added a second with the last kick of the game, as Marco Davide Faraoni’s cross from the right found Rolando Mandragora, denied yet again by Ochoa, but the goalkeeper could do nothing when the rebound was rolled across for Ikone.