Maurizio Sarri noted his limited squad options ahead of Lazio’s Coppa Italia Round of 16 clash against Udinese tomorrow.
The Biancocelesti are coming from a confident 3-0 win over Salernitana on Saturday, where star striker Ciro Immobile netted a 10-minute brace. Things are a little more dire on the Udinese side, with the Bianconeri coming from a 2-0 loss to Juventus and 6-2 loss to Atalanta.
Speaking to Lazio’s media outlets ahead of tomorrow’s match, Sarri first discussed his desire to take the Coppa Italia seriously this season.
“The spirit tomorrow must be to pass the round. The event is important and we have to face it without thinking about the previous round or the next ones.
“It’s just a pity that we don’t have enough players available to face the match. We have six or seven absentees, but we have to go straight ahead.”
The 63-year-old Italian coach highlighted how he couldn’t make too many rotations for the match.
“We’ll make a few changes, but there won’t be too many because we can’t make any at the moment.”
Finally, Sarri reflected upon Lazio’s last match against Salernitana and the importance of maintaining consistency.
“We need to keep up the pace we saw in the last game. It’s clear that the Salernitana game should be taken with a grain of salt, because there were a lot of absentees and we don’t know how far our merits go and where their difficulties begin.
“However, we played quality football and we must continue on that path.”
The winner of tomorrow’s Coppa Italia clash will face AC Milan in the quarter-finals, and the winner of that match would face the last team standing out of the Roma-Lecce and Inter–Empoli matches in the semi-finals.
Lazio, Sarri: "Abbiamo 7 giocatori fuori. La vittoria con la Salernitana va presa con le molle" https://t.co/mu2DmsNVBG
— TUTTOmercatoWEB (@TuttoMercatoWeb) January 17, 2022