Udinese dug deep to ease the pressure on coach Pasquale Marino and heap misery on Roma boss Claudio Ranieri in the process.

This crunch fixture of two sides struggling in the bottom half of the table was eventually settled when Antonio Floro Flores poked home his second of the night six minutes from time.

That was despite Udinese having gone down to 10 men moments earlier with the dismissal of Dusan Basta. That, however, only levelled up the numbers with Roma having had Rodrigo Taddei sent off early in the second half.

Flores gave Udinese the lead after 21 minutes, but Daniele De Rossi cancelled that out three minutes before half-time.

Things certainly did not look good for Udinese in the early stages as Roma began very much on top.

Mirko Vucinic sent a long-range effort narrowly wide before setting up Matteo Brighi who was also just off target.

The chances continued to come for the visitors with Samir Handanovic forced to save from De Rossi and then Brighi in quick succession.

It was therefore against the run of play that Udinese took the lead, with Flores getting up to head home from Gaetano D'Agostino's free-kick.

They might have been 2-0 up moments later when Gyan Asamoah found himself all alone in front of goal, but he fluffed the chance and allowed the Roma defence to get back and clear the ball.

Stefano Guberti was off target for Roma with a volleyed effort while at the other end Asamoah blew another good chance as he failed to find the target from close range.

Marco Motta then brought a fine save from Handanovic with a powerful shot, but the Roma equaliser was only moments away.

Again, the Bianconeri goalkeeper did his best, palming away Juan's header, but the ball fell for De Rossi to tap in with ease.

The first half ended with Asamoah firing over from 25 yards.

Having worked so hard to get back into the game, Roma shot themselves in the foot only four minutes into the second half with Taddei's needless red card.

The winger took a hand to the face from Gokhan Inler, but then saw red for dissent as he remonstrated with the assistant referee.

Roma were left to hang on for 40 minutes, and it proved too much for them, even as Udinese eventually lost one of their own.

Not that they did not make a game of it.

Asamoah wasted yet another chance in the 56th minute, but the openings then dried up as Roma successfully shut the game down.

Roma goalkeeper Alexandre Doni was not called upon again until the 75th minute when he made a fine save from Mauricio Isla, and Ranieri was perhaps thinking he would get a point after all when Basta collected his second yellow card moments later for a foul on Vucinic.

But only six minutes later, Flores got on the end of Alexis Sanchez's free-kick for another close-range header.

Vucinic had a great chance for an almost instantaneous equaliser, but he sent the ball wide from close range.