Maurizio Sarri tried to understand Lazio’s disappointing 1-1 draw with Ivan Juric’s Torino yesterday.
The Biancocelesti struggled to impose themselves on the match at the Stadio Olimpico last night, leaving the Italian coach frustrated on the sidelines as they headed toward a 1-0 loss. A late Ciro Immobile equaliser clawed back a point and allowed the team to breath a little following a tough evening.
Speaking in a press conference (via La Lazio Siamo Noi), Sarri first discussed how Lazio struggled to find their rhythm against Torino.
We suffered aggression and physicality of the opponents because we did little movement without the ball and we made the ball travel at too low speed.
Too many movements against the ball, they are very good at attacking those who go towards the ball and they suffer when the opponents attack the depth, something that we did too little.
Then we conceded too much dribbling because in the defensive phase, our centre of gravity was too low, so the full backs were too stretched and there was too much distance between our inside players and the opponents’ central midfielders.
That was the problem, then at the end of the match, I don’t know if it was due to a drop by them or because we raised the intensity, we managed to take control of the game and we are also disappointed because if we had tied before we could have won, undeservedly, but we could have won.
The Lazio coach commented on the final reaction and the issue regarding loose balls.
The final reaction was good. On a character level we took a step forward, because in other games when we went into difficulty we abandoned the game, we lost badly, today we didn’t and this was a step forward.
Then the games are long and there is always the possibility to put them in order. On corner kicks we don’t have a very physical team, we have two or three jumpers.
We were not aggressive towards the ball because today a ball that falls on the edge of the area with a little more aggression, with a little more attack towards the ball, could have been put away. We have two central defenders in the middle of the box who are quite good in the air.
Sarri expressed his regret that Lazio failed to pick up their third consecutive win and commented on the performances of the officials.
The achievement of the third victory in a row was our goal and I have some regrets in this sense, but these are games in which either we manage, moving the ball at great speed, to transform their aggressiveness into spaces, because coming one man against one move, if you move the ball at great speed you find huge spaces, or you suffer the aggressiveness.
Today we didn’t move the ball well, neither technically, nor for movements without the ball that could facilitate our movement.
As for the refereeing, among the referees I know less I think he had a positive attitude. He shows himself well towards the benches, towards the players, he is not arrogant. The only thing that can be discussed is that in the first nine minutes Izzo committed three fouls and probably the third could have triggered a warning. But I prefer referees like that to others.
Sarri discussed the physical conditions of Patric and Pedro.
I don’t know. Patric is a situation to be evaluated and not even tomorrow, at least 48 hours after the event. Pedro I don’t know honestly.
Luckily a serious injury has been avoided, it just seems like something to do with the old scar from the Salerno injury. The time shouldn’t be too long, but he needs to be re-evaluated every two days. We’ll see during the week if he can return to the group or not, I hope so.
He explained why he appeared angry when Luiz Felipe was substituted on during the second half of yesterday’s draw.
I was angry with the team more than anything else. He clearly wasn’t ready because Patric had a muscular injury, but he was ready as soon as the game restarted, we had the ball, let’s put it out.
I dropped out of the Champions League with Juventus in Lyon because of a similar incident, we conceded while de Ligt was standing on the sidelines.
Finally, Sarri spoke about whether his job was to highlight the good points or work on the bad points.
The merits highlight themselves. If Immobile scores 40 goals I don’t think it’s thanks to the coach. We’re working on the flaws and we’ve achieved something, because in the second half we conceded half as many goals as in the first half. There are some positive effects.
On the character side we’re trying to work on it, today for the first time the team had a tough, nervous and bad reaction because they didn’t want to lose. There is some step forward.
The team has scored 24 points in the last 12 games, not in the Europa League but in the Champions League, so the team is growing.
