Maurizio Sarri felt Lazio ‘lost focus’ in their frustrating 2-1 loss to AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of their Europa Conference League Round of 16 tie.
The home side took a 1-0 lead after just 18 minutes thanks to Pedro but were unable to keep up their early momentum and allowed the Dutch outfit to find an equaliser just before half time.
Lazio looked far more lethargic in the second half and AZ took advantage of this, finding the winning goal just after the hour mark to allow them to put one foot in the quarter-finals of the Conference League.
Speaking in a press conference, Sarri first reacted to Lazio’s disappointing 2-1 loss 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 gave his thoughts on star midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who has not been at his usual level recently.
“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 Lazio coach explained why he took off 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.”
He confirmed that president Claudio Lotito visited the squad in the dressing room after the defeat.
“He thought the same as me. He didn’t like the change in attitude either.”
The 64-year-old Italian coach looked to explain the two goals Lazio conceded to AZ Alkmaar.
“At the base there was an error in playing out the back, but they were two avoidable situations.”
Finally, Sarri was asked about his opinion on the work of the referee in the Conference League clash.
“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.”