Miroslav Klose opened the scoring as Lazio secured a precious 3-1 away win at Cagliari to keep the pressure on Roma on Saturday as they battle for Serie A’s second automatic Champions League qualifying spot.

Roma had earlier ended a four-month wait for victory at the Stadio Olimpico when Miralem Pjanic struck in the 25th minute to seal a 1-0 win for Rudi Garcia’s men over Napoli in the ‘Derby del Sole’.

The win closed the gap on leaders Juventus to 11 points but their four-point lead on Lazio was pegged back to just one point after Stefano Pioli’s men secured their seventh victory on the trot on their visit to Sardinia.

Lazio broke the deadlock on the half hour after some great work by Felipe Anderson allowed an unmarked Klose to tap in at the back post.

And although Cagliari pulled level after the restart thanks to Marco Sau’s deflected half-volley, Lazio struck back through a Lucas Biglia penalty and then Marco Parolo’s piledriver of a free kick in extra-time.

Pioli affirmed: “Today we showed great character and fight against a team that made life difficult for us.

“We’ll try to win every game left this season. At the end, we’ll look at how we’ve fared.”

Fiorentina leapt up to fourth thanks to a precious 2-0 win over Sampdoria in a rain-hit encounter in Florence, where Alessandro Diamanti and Mohamed Salah, with a superb individual effort, striking in three, second-half minutes.

La Viola are still six points behind Lazio in third, but moved up to fourth to sit one point ahead of Samp and two ahead of stuttering Napoli.

Spanish midfielder Borja Valero admitted to Sky Sport that chasing a third-place finish is not beyond Fiorentina: “We have to believe in it.”

He added: “Today was a crucial win for us because they (Samp) have been playing really well and the pitch was terrible to play on. We played the perfect game.”

Elsewhere, AC Milan kept in the Europa League qualifying hunt with a precious 2-1 win at Palermo thanks to a fine late winner from French forward Jeremy Menez.

Milan remain eighth but are now six points off fifth-placed Napoli in the second and last league spot for the Europa League.

It was Milan’s second successive win but their first away since beating Verona 3-1 in October.

“We’ve taken three crucial points and finally we’ve managed to win away. It’s a victory that counts double,” said midfielder Luca Antonelli.

City rivals Inter Milan, meanwhile, remain winless after five games.

Coach Roberto Mancini and Inter were booed by an unhappy San Siro crowd following a disappointing 1-1 draw with crisis-hit Parma, who had Andi Lila to thank for levelling Fredy Guarin’s deflected 25th minute strike.

Inter sit in 10th place, three points behind Milan, with nine games remaining this season.

“We weren’t clinical enough. Tomorrow, the rest day is cancelled. We’ll be training,” Mancini told Sky Sport.

Cesena, meanwhile, boosted their bid to stave off relegation by securing a point in a stunning 3-3 draw at Verona after the hosts had raced to a three-goal lead thanks to in part to a Luca Toni brace which took his tally for the season to 15.

Carlos Carbonero, on 70 minutes, Franco Brienza and then Davide Succi struck in the closing minutes to stun the hosts.

Roma’s first home win since a 4-2 defeat of Inter on November 30 was welcomed by the Stadio Olimpico crowd, and Garcia told Sky Sport: “Now we’re nine points ahead of Napoli and we’ll be waiting for the rest of the results although the crucial thing for us was to win a second consecutive game.”

Napoli have now suffered three defeats in a five-game winless run that has severely dented their chances of Champions League football.

Benitez admitted their bid to seize the league’s second automatic qualifying place was now “difficult”.

“With nine points (deficit) it’s now looking difficult, but we still have nine games to play,” said the Spaniard.

“If we play as we did today then I expect us to win many of those games.”