Juventus scrape past Fiorentina to tighten grip on 3rd place

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Juventus consolidated third place in Serie A with Sunday's hard-fought 1-0 win over Fiorentina.

Federico Gatti prodded home the only goal of the game in the 21st minute at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, the Italy defender in the right place at the right time after Gleison Bremer's header came back out off the post.

"Yeah we tried that one in training this morning... You need a bit of luck every now and again," joked Gatti about his goal.

Gatti's goal pushed Juve four points ahead of Bologna who stayed fourth following their goalless draw at relegation-threatened Frosinone in the day's first kick-off.

Bologna are aiming to reach the modern Champions League for the first time -- they played one round in the old European Cup in 1964 -- and are a good bet to do so thanks to eight wins from their last 10 matches.

Juve had picked up just seven points from their previous nine league fixtures, but Sunday's win came days after comfortably beating Lazio in the first leg of their Italian Cup semi-final.

"It's a really big win, we came into the game off the back of two really difficult months," said Gatti.

"We've got a month and a half left where we have a lot to play for."

It wasn't an easy three points however as Juve had three goals chalked off for offside, including a tap-in from former Fiorentina man Dusan Vlahovic, in the opening 45 minutes before sitting on their slender lead for almost the entire second half.

In the end, Juve had Wojciech Szczesny to thank for the win as the Poland goalkeeper tipped Nicolas Gonzalez's curling strike onto the crossbar with a magnificent save in the 74th minute.

Fiorentina, who dominated the second half without finding the breakthrough, stay 10th after failing to win for a fourth consecutive league match.