Jovetic 27, 36

A brace of first-half goals by 19-year-old Montenegran striker Stevan Jovetic consigned an insipid Liverpool to defeat in this Group B Champions League encounter. The Serie A side were worthy winners after a dominant opening 45 minutes. And although Liverpool had more of the play after half-time, they were wasteful with early chances and their frustrations only grew as the night went on.

Rafa Benitez’s men clearly missed the injured Javier Mascherano in the centre of the park, with Lucas Leiva an inadequate replacement. And Benitez was left complaining after the match that “Our mentality in that opening period was just not right, we were bad all over the pitch.” The tide was already turning in the hosts’ favour when, on 27 minutes, Cristiano Zanetti played the ball through to Jovetic, who beat Liverpool’s offside trap and coolly slotted the ball past Pepe Reina’s right hand. Reina got a hand to Juan Vargas’ left-foot drive four minutes later. But on 36 minutes, he could only palm Jovetic’s shot into the net after the striker had diverted Vargas’ low left-foot cross goalwards.

Fiorentina keeper Sebastien Frey was at last called into action a minute after the break, doing well to turn aside Yossi Benayoun’s right-foot drive. And although he was beaten by Lucas’s header from the resultant corner, the Brazilian couldn’t keep his effort on target. The hosts seemed content to defend their lead and did so with only a few alarms.

The otherwise subdued Fernando Torres was angered by what he felt was a foul on him in the penalty area by Alessandro Gamberini. But when he got his first clear sight of goal moments later, he blazed his shot high over the bar. And after the equally subdued Steven Gerrard looped a header narrowly wide on 83 minutes, Liverpool’s chance of rescuing anything from the balmy Florence night was gone.