Paulo Sousa lost his debut on the Salernitana bench, as Ciro Immobile ended his Serie A drought with a decisive brace to get Lazio back on track.
The hosts sacked Davide Nicola for the second time in a month, but there was no backtracking after 48 hours, instead bringing in Paulo Sousa. The new coach made his debut without injured Boulaye Dia, William Troost-Ekong, Federico Fazio, Pasquale Mazzocchi and Giulio Maggiore. The Biancocelesti beat CFR Cluj in the Conference League play-off on Thursday despite being down to 10 men for 75 minutes. Mattia Zaccagni was suspended, with Alessio Romagnoli and Stefan Radu injured, while Sergej Milinkovic-Savic also pulled out at the last minute with a stomach bug.
Antonio Candreva had a couple of early attempts on the counter against his former club, while Luigi Sepe parried a Ciro Immobile angled drive at the near post.
Flavius Daniliuc got a decisive touch to deflect Matias Vecino’s effort inches wide, while Sepe flew to palm away the Pedro curler from just inside the area and Candreva stung Ivan Provedel’s gloves from a tricky angle.
After the restart, Pedro cut inside and had his shot smothered, now wearing a large bandage on his nose after a knock made it bleed in the first half.
Lazio broke through when Adam Marusic got down the right and rolled across for Ciro Immobile, who timed his run perfectly to ghost away from the defenders and tap in at the back post.
Dylan Bronn almost scored a spectacular equaliser with his overhead kick that sailed just off target.
However, moments later Lorenzo Pirola and Sepe seemed to have a lack of communication and urgency, so Immobile got between them through sheer determination to win the penalty. Immobile also converted, hard and low into the near bottom corner, despite Sepe getting a fingertip to it.
That brace took Immobile to 191 Serie A goals, putting him in eighth place in the all-time charts ahead of Kurt Hamrin.
Sepe was ready when Luis Alberto tried to curl in directly from the corner flag, but substitute Matteo Cancellieri earned a soft penalty when cutting in front of Bronn and the defender took his protests too far, earning a red card. It proved futile, because Luis Alberto saw his spot-kick parried by Sepe and then fired the rebound wide.
Salernitana 0-2 Lazio
Immobile 60, pen 69 (L)
Sent off: Bronn 88 (S)
Saved penalty: Luis Alberto 89 (L)
Player statistic
| 44' |  |
Matías Vecino |
| Lorenzo Pirola | |
55' | ||
| 60' |  |
Ciro Immobile (Assist: Adam Marusic) | ||
| 69' |  |
Ciro Immobile | ||
| Diego Valencia | |
83' | ||
| Dylan Bronn | |
88' | ||
| Dylan Bronn |  |
88' | ||
| Flavius Daniliuc | |
90+1' | ||
| 90' |  |
Luis Alberto |
Match statistic
