Maurizio Sarri was disappointed with Lazio’s wasteful work in their Conference League defeat to AZ Alkmaar, complaining about the poor mentality shown from his squad.
The Biancocelesti went ahead after just 18 minutes thanks to veteran winger Pedro, but could not keep up this level and allowed Vangelis Pavlidis to find an equaliser for AZ just before half time.
Lazio looked more lethargic in the second half and paid for this just after the hour mark, when former Milan man Milos Kerkez scored the winner for the Eredivisie side, allowing them to put one foot in the quarter-finals of the Conference League.
Speaking in a press conference (via TMW), Sarri first highlighted a number of mistakes made by Lazio in their defeat to AZ Alkmaar.
We had the wrong attitude. After a good start, we dropped back and played in the last twenty metres. We overdid things going back towards the goalkeeper instead of keeping them away from our goal.
We created a lot, we could have won 4-2 but we made a lot of mistakes in front of goal. We were talking about it this morning, we are scoring less, but we are creating more chances. It means we’ve lost nastiness and focus.
He spoke about the work of Sergej Milinkovic-Savic in recent weeks.
I’m seeing him growing in training. I don’t want him to return to the player who sometimes overdoes things in some way for its own sake. He can always do more.
The 64-year-old Italian coach provided an update of defender Nicolo Casale.
According to the doctor he could have gone on, he had a small calf complaint, but he wasn’t coming from a calm situation and we didn’t want to risk him.
Sarri noted how president Claudio Lotito was equally disappointed with Lazio’s Conference League defeat, visiting the changing room after the match.
He thought the same as me. He didn’t like the change in attitude either.
He touched on the two goals conceded by the Biancocelesti.
At the base there was an error in playing out the back, but they were two avoidable situations.
Finally, Sarri was asked to give his thoughts about the work of the officials in Lazio’s loss to AZ.
Even in Italy there are referees of this type who allow play and physical contact without whistling.
I don’t think we suffered from that kind of refereeing, we put our own spin on it because we conceded two avoidable goals, and we lost out on seven or eight goals.
