Verona v Fiorentina, De Gea: "Every save is dedicated to my father, who is in hospital"

Named man of the match, De Gea had a special message to share in the post-match interview: "All my saves are dedicated to my father, who is in hospital," he told DAZN. "We didn’t play our best game of the season, but sometimes we’ve come away with less than we deserved, and today the opposite happened; that’s football. Today we were focused on this match because we haven’t done anything yet in the battle to avoid relegation; then there’s Europe, which gives us new motivation: Crystal Palace are a team that, like all Premier League sides, attack a lot and play on a small pitch; they’re strong, but we’ll try to do our best.”

With their victory over Verona, Fiorentina have now gone four consecutive league matches without defeat; this figure rises to six if we include the home and away legs of the Conference League round of 16 against Rakow. In Serie A, the Viola are now five points clear of the relegation zone, third-bottom place is occupied by Lecce on 27 points, though they have a game in hand (they play Atalanta tomorrow), and Vanoli’s side are on 32 points after overtaking Cagliari thanks to the three points earned against the Gialloblù and capitalising on Pisacane’s side’s defeat in Reggio Emilia against Sassuolo.