Sergej Milinkovic-Savic maintains Lazio will be ‘prepared’ for whoever they get in the Europa League play-offs after failing to break down Galatasaray.
They would’ve topped the group and gone directly into the Round of 16 with a victory, but were held to a 0-0 draw at the Stadio Olimpico.
“It didn’t go the way we wanted, as obviously we wanted the win and tried everything to bring the points home, but Galatasaray put up a brick wall and the ball didn’t want to go in,” Milinkovic-Savic told Sky Sport Italia.
That means Lazio, along with Napoli, go into the play-offs against teams who dropped down from the Champions League, including Barcelona, Sevilla and Borussia Dortmund.
“We go through as runners-up and now we have to prepare for the next round. We saw the teams who could be in the draw with us, but we’ll prepare well and try to progress in the competition.”
Lazio are still getting to grips with Maurizio Sarri’s style of football and the passing moves remain too slow to really cause problems.
“It’s a very different type of football, with Sarri we play the ball to feet a lot more. We haven’t done as well in recent games, but I like it when we play it and don’t just go for the long ball.”
Lazio took a very long time to really step up the tempo and start pushing Galatasaray, were they afraid of potential counter-attacks?
“We knew that if we conceded early, it would be really tough to turn it around. There was also pressure to get the victory, but I think we played well and created chances to score goals.”