Fiorentina relaunch title challenge with Udinese win

Stuttering Fiorentina relaunched their faltering title challenge with a vital 4-2 home victory over Udinese on Saturday.

Riccardo Montolivo scored a brace, Adrian Mutu hit the net from the spot and Alberto Gilardino also got his name on the scoresheet as La Viola came from behind to move up to fourth in the table.

Antonio Floro Flores had given Udinese a first half lead and substitute Antonio Di Natale tucked home a penalty late on for the visitors.

Fiorentina had lost two of their previous three matches at lowly Cagliari and Siena and were seeing their championship hopes start to drift away.

But this will boost their hopes, although they finished with 10 men following Gianluca Comotto's late red card.

For Udinese it was a third straight defeat and fourth match in a row without a win since they enjoyed a share of the Serie A lead.

They had the first real chance after a quarter of an hour as Floro Flores climbed highest to meet a Simone Pepe cross with his head but Fiorentina's French goalkeeper Sebastien Frey made a good save.

A minute later and Udinese's Slovenian stopper Samir Handanovic spilled a shot from Montolivo but dived on the loose ball just before Mutu arrived.

Frey then made a point blank save from Swiss international Gokhan Inler on 22 minutes but the visitors' pressure soon told.

On 29 minutes Floro Flores teased two defenders on the edge of box and then lifted a fine shot over Frey.

Two minutes later Frey made a great save to deny Floro Flores a second on the volley.

Udinese had enjoyed much the better of the first half but the game turned on a soft penalty award after the break.

Alberto Gilardino tumbled in the box under a challenge from Maurizio Domizzi but the referee awarded a spot-kick despite television replays showing he wasn't even looking at the incident when it happened.

Mutu cleverly dinked the penalty home with a cheeky chip. Moments later he also headed over a cross from Mario Sanatana as the worm started to turn.

Frey made a double block in quick succession from Giovanni Pasquale and Floro Flores before Fiorentina went up the other end to take the lead on 64 minutes.

It was a simple goal as Montolivo took Mutu's pass to the left of the area and curled a low shot around Handanovic.

Fiorentina then scored twice more within a minute as Montolivo sent home a bobbling left foot volley from outside the box before Mutu crossed for Gilardino to poke home a fourth.

Comotto was red carded after stupidly handling on the line to deny Floro Flores a second but Di Natale stroked home the resultant spot kick.

Udinese piled on some late pressure but to no avail.