Lazio boss Simone Inzaghi admits “Napoli played better and deserved to win, but I didn’t agree with either of the Francesco Acerbi bookings.”
Jose Callejon and Arkadiusz Milik had given the hosts a comfortable lead, but just after Ciro Immobile pulled one back, the Aquile were reduced to 10 men.
Lazio boss Simone Inzaghi admits “Napoli played better and deserved to win, but I didn’t agree with either of the Francesco Acerbi bookings.”
Jose Callejon and Arkadiusz Milik had given the hosts a comfortable lead, but just after Ciro Immobile pulled one back, the Aquile were reduced to 10 men.
“Napoli played better than we did and certainly deserved to win, but having said that, on the first yellow card, Callejon was clever to get in front of Acerbi and then stop, ensuring the defender had to run into him,” the Coach told Sky Sport Italia after a 2-1 defeat.
“As for the second booking, he clearly got the ball and it was not even a foul. I noticed that, I got angry, but these incidents do keep happening to us.”
The Biancocelesti improved considerably when Joaquin Correa came off the bench.
“Correa is a resource for us and he had started the last six games, missing the Coppa Italia because he had flu. Our first half performance was bad, we were too passive, Napoli deservedly took the lead.
“There were 25 minutes left when we got back into the game, with XI against XI who knows how it would’ve ended? It’s a regret, but we have been unlucky recently.
“We went down to 10 men against Inter as well, although I had no complaints about the Senad Lulic second yellow. This evening, I didn’t agree with either of the two bookings for Acerbi.
“As I said, Napoli didn’t steal anything, they deserved to win. They hit the woodwork four times, although the Jose Callejon chance was offside so wouldn’t have counted, and we went too deep for long periods.
“It’s going to be a fight to the end between many different teams for a place in Europe.”
Acerbi was sent off and will therefore be suspended against Juventus, ending his hopes of catching Javier Zanetti’s record of 162 competitive appearances in a row.
“We won’t have Acerbi next weekend against Juventus and it’ll be a real shame to see that extraordinary run of appearances come to an end after 149.
“I took Sergej Milinkovic-Savic off because he was already booked and I didn’t want to lose another player.”