Maurizio Sarri was bitterly disappointed to see his Lazio suffer defeat after a late flurry by Inter, suggesting his team ‘surrendered’.
The Biancocelesti said they were irritated at this fixture being treated like a mere amuse bouche to the Napoli Scudetto celebrations, which required they drop points at San Siro this afternoon.
They certainly made it a battle, taking the lead when Felipe Anderson pounced on a Francesco Acerbi error, but Inter came back in the closing stages to win 3-1 with a pair of Lautaro Martinez goals around the acrobatic Robin Gosens volley.
At least the defeat will make Sarri’s old club Napoli happy, as it means they will win the Scudetto today as long as they beat Salernitana at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
Speaking to Sky Sports Italia, Sarri first underlined his frustrations with Lazio after their 3-1 loss to Inter.
“At the most important moment we surrendered. We conceded a goal softly, losing a ball that could not be lost. I didn’t like that phase of the match, when Inter shouted at us, we surrendered.
“Until the 20th minute of the second half, that was not the case. We dropped not so much in the physical aspect, but in the aspect of surrender.”
He touched on his team’s apparent drop in form after their recent successful run.
“Inter did badly in a certain period, but in this decisive moment they made a change. I’m talking about energy capacity, we are the team that runs the most. I have to be a mechanic at certain times. For a long stretch of the match, I saw Lazio inside the game.
“We came close to doubling the score at the end of the first half, we also missed some counter-attacks. But we also have to remain focused, because if at the start of the year we’d been told that we would be in this position in the table at this point, we would all have been happy.”
The Biancocelesti coach gave his thoughts on Robin Gosens’ crucial goal, which put Inter 2-1 up.
“We had time to go up, we could have been much more inside and given Marusic the chance to be much deeper.
“The defence was subjected to too many risks today and so we had to get some of them wrong. We were constantly exposed.”
Finally, Sarri discussed why he brought off star striker Ciro Immobile.
“Clearly, he wasn’t at his best, he’s growing, he’s training but he’s still not at his best. The team was suffering, and I thought more of a dribbling player to take some of the pressure off.”