Maurizio Sarri believes Lazio ‘switched off’ in a second half he’d like to forget, following their 2-1 defeat to Lecce. The Biancocelesti took an early lead through Ciro Immobile but were left stunned when the home side fought back to secure a vital three points. Sarri was scathing in his post-match interview with Sky Sport Italia, saying it was hard to explain his teams drop in form:
It was an incredible match where we played 30-35 minutes at an excellent level without conceding anything. In some moments it became dirtier but in the second half there were lost balls and due to the great strength of the opponents, it’s a match to be forgotten, it’s disappointing to go out with this result.
The physical aspect is too easy an alibi that I don’t want to use it, if physically we are less brilliant we get up, it’s true that we had to recover some players but we switched off and handed ourselves over to the opponents.
Felipe Anderson on the bench? It was a period where Pedro and Zaccagni seemed to be in a more positive moment in training, it’s normal turn over. There was a fuss about Milinkovic’s change. We made a miscommunication with the coaching staff and made a substitution we didn’t want to make. We got confused as well as the team.
Explanations are hard to come by in these situations. The team played 30 minutes of high level in complete control of the match. Already at the end of the first half there were warnings that the game was getting dirty, in the second half we triggered them.
We lost five or six balls and completely switched off and handed ourselves over to the opponents. To start the match with a good approach and then finish like that is hard to explain. If Lecce plays a good match and we lose it means we are an inferior team to what we think we are. When we allowed them to do so, they took over the field, when they saw us vulnerable they were good at attacking us. There is work to be done here, we have been trying to do it for a long time but there is something going off in this team. The team has limited passive moments this season but today the problem came back again.
How did I experience the break? As a huge pain in the… Unbelievable and inconceivable, I’m also sorry to have to talk about it. I am in favour of Boxing Day, for me we should play on the 1st on the 6th. For a footballer to stand still at the most beautiful time of the year is a blasphemy and I don’t think football has got anything out of it.”
