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Lyon's fine start to the season continued with a 1-0 win over 10-man Fiorentina in their Champions League Group E clash at the Stade Gerland.

Bosnia & Herzegovina midfielder Miralem Pjanic grabbed the only goal of a largely scrappy encounter after 76 minutes after the visitors had controversially been reduced to 10 men when Fiorentina striker Alberto Gilardino was dismissed.

The first half had been an uneventful one for the opening 43 minutes when it suddenly burst into life with a couple of controversial incidents.

First, the lively Aly Cissokho produced another of his many surging runs down the left wing for Lyon, which had hitherto been unproductive, but on this occasion his delivery swerved viciously in the air and bounced off the crossbar and into the net.

But it was ruled out by the assistant referee on the far side for having gone out of play.

Moments later the incident that changed the course of the match occurred when Gilardino, who scored twice in this fixture last season, was sent off for an apparent elbow on Jeremy Toulalan.

The pair were competing for a high ball deep in the Lyon half when Toulalan went down holding his face and Dutch referee Pieter Vink, who had already issued three yellow cards in the half, had no hesitation in showing Gilardino the red card for violent conduct.

Television replays of the incident were inconclusive but the Lyon man did appear to jump into Gilardino's elbow and as a consequence of the incident, Fiorentina began the second half with 10 men.

The visitors understandably adopted a more defensive strategy in the second half, playing first Adrian Mutu and then substitute Stevan Jovetic as the lone striker.

The Italian side managed to snuff out the Lyon threat comfortably for 25 minutes, at which point the game looked to be heading for a draw, but with tiredness beginning to become a factor Lyon came into the ascendency.

Lyon were creating mainly down the right hand side through substitute Cesar Delgado and it was from his cross that Lisandro Lopez missed a decent chance on 69 minutes.

Seven minutes later Lyon did break through and it came via a link-up between Sidney Govou and Kim Kallstrom.

Kallstrom collected Govou's pass and hit his cross with pace from the right hand side of the area where Sebastian Frey could only parry it into the path of Pjanic who made no mistake from close range.

It was all Lyon from that point on and Fiorentina had Frey to thank for keeping the score down in the closing stages.

The French keeper made a string of reflex saves in the last 10 minutes, including one notable double save from Lisandro and Govou, but one proved to be enough for Lyon in the end

Sean Calvert / Eurosport