Taking a look at the Serie A standings, after seven contested days, several elements could surprise those who are not regular followers of Serie A. If Lecce is a pleasant and surprising surprise, Lazio carries an opposite burden. How can the Biancocelesti be in 16th position in the championship, when they finished just behind champion Napoli last season? After a juicy transfer window, where the management spent an envelope of 38 million euros to attract in particular Valentín Castellanos, Gustav Isaksen, Daichi Kamada, Luigi Sepe, Mattéo Guendouzi, Nicolò Rovella and the return on loan of Luca Pellegrini, Lazio opened his new campaign with a rejuvenated squad which seemed rather versatile, reinforced and complementary. The results of these first two seem abnormal, given the quality present within the group, still coached by Maurizio Sarri. With this still perilous trip to Glasgow to face Celtic this Wednesday evening in the Champions League, Sarri’s future remains more uncertain than ever… Especially since President Claudio Lotito does not seem to have him in his heart and even the main person concerned seems pessimistic: “If you ask me if we can be competitive in the Champions League, I would say no, let’s see step by step. The idea is to be competitive at least in the group stage. If they continue to make a schedule like this I will stop coaching, it’s not football I enjoy anymore. I wake up in the morning and I don’t even remember who we’re playing against.”
“I no longer see that little extra thing that there was last season. It seems strange to say when seeing the results, but I see a good atmosphere in the group even during training. We are worried because we don’t understand what could have happened. I have an idea but I’m only telling my guys, not you.”, he declared at a press conference on Tuesday evening, before a decisive meeting for his future against Celtic. Because yes, it is not impossible to see the former Napoli coach leave in the coming weeks. For several months, the relationship with its president Claudio Lotito has been at its best, like this crisis meeting organized at the end of the transfer window, a symbol of the crystallization of exchanges between the two men. A subject of contention: the promises not kept by sports management on the market. Neither Domenico Berardi nor Samuele Ricci signed for Lazio this summer, although they were Sarri’s two priority targets. All the alternatives proposed (Milos Kerkez, Djibril Sow, Arsen Zakharyan, Alejo Véliz) were all rejected by the coach: “The players I had indicated did not arrive. We started with plan A, but then I had to choose between profile X and profile Y”lamented the 64-year-old coach, following the defeat against AC Milan, usual direct competitor.
A disastrous start to the season!
A disappointing transfer window therefore, according to the words of Maurizio Sarri, at least not in line with his tactical project. And this is reflected at the start of the season. In the league, Lazio is in 16th position with a total of four defeats (Lecce, Genoa, Juventus, AC Milan) in seven contested days and even notable successes against Napoli (1-2) and Torino (2-0). ) do not mask the obvious drop in offensive strength that Lazio enjoyed last year. One statistic is striking: seven goals in seven games for Lazio this year in Serie A, and most of them have been the work of midfielders, notably Spaniard Luis Alberto. The collapse in the offensive performances of the Biancocelesti compared to last year is mainly rooted in the poor form of Ciro Immobile who is aging and who is struggling to string together such good performances compared to certain past years. In the ratio between chances created and goals scored, Lazio is the third worst team in Italy. A glaring lack of efficiency, realism and creativity in the offensive aspect. In this sense, the loss of Serbian midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who left for Saudi Arabia, is dangerously starting to be felt since, again last year, he had 9 goals and 9 assists.
What is much more serious is that in these same bitter and sad matches, only two goals were scored by open play and one by a penalty from other teammates. A crisis which has been going on for some time and for which the Biancoceleste coach and the players themselves do not seem to have found a solution: “I expected a different start to the season, but I see how the team is doing and how we work with our teammates and I am convinced that the results will come. I can say about the controversies of the last few days that my wife and I were more hurt”, detailed Captain Immobile. On Sarri’s side, we must not put pressure on ourselves, even if the executives are criticized and certain names of successors, including Igor Tudor, are circulating in the press: “It’s not going to be a redemption game. The Champions League has its own history. You only have to think about bringing back the result to be competitive until the end of this group. We are playing a competition with the strongest European teams, that should be enough to find the necessary motivation without immediately thinking about rankings and the desire to redeem ourselves”. In any case, Maurizio Sarri continues his internal standoff with Claudio Lotito… And it’s not certain that he will win this fight.
