[gogol]

The defeat to Sampdoria is more of a blow psycologically. Samp are clearly better than us this season, they have had more continuity and they have a team ethic that I certainly didn’t expect Papa to bring together over 4-5 games. Our dissapointing league position compounds the sadness after this defeat. The main thing now is to concentrate on the remainder of the season. I still believe we have a team better than one fighting from relegation. We just have to put it together over the 90 minutes. At the moment, I believe our problems are mostly at the back, where we have never found our equilibrium this season. Having had 6-7 centre-back combinations haven’t helped either. The defense is such a vital factor of a Serie A team, that you can’t have a gung-ho attitude and attempt to outscore your rivals and win like in Spain and England. Even in our recent wins against Fiorentina and Cagliari in Coppa , we conceded at a bad pace. In the next few days, papa has to work out these ‘weaknesses’ that he said. Otherwise, against Reggina away from home we would have no chance. Remember that our next opponenets have beaten Juve,Roma and held Inter at home this season !
The best philosophy for that game , imo, would be a variation of the 4-4-2 but hopefully Talamonti and Couto can have the support from our defensive mids that some situations demand. Giannichedda and Dabo should both play further back. Fillipini should also play this way, thus converting our system into a 4-3-1-2 with Cesar/Pandev occupying that forward-left position that Nedved played with Juve in 2003. This will give more security to our defense, yet leave the forwards free enough for the counter-attacks. I’m not saying that we sacrifice the width that a 4-4-2 would give us, but that width can be provided from the left side only and we should focus a lot more on building attacks down the left channel. And please tell Oddo to stay in our half for a longer period. He is no Cafu.
Btw, is there any news when Zauri is scheduled to return ?

Forza Lazio !!

 

[Anomander Rake]

It's difficult building a good defence when most of the time at least two of the regular starters at the back are missing. Zauri's replacements have been mostly awful, Oddo can have one great game followed by an amazingly poor one, the same goes for Talamonti. Add to that our very bad fitness level and obviously we should suffer and do suffer against team who play high-speed football.
I don't think we should play GG and Dabo because without Liverani our creativity goes down the drain in most games, we need him in midfield.

 

[Zangari_Italia]

I hope Zauri can get back sometime soon everytime I watched him he impressed me. Good going forward and decent at the back. Talamonti perhaps needs to get more games but he has all the skills to be good in the Serie A though perhaps his speed is lacking(?). If a Talamonti and Couto doesn't work out than perhaps have Dabo as defensive mid with Liverani and perhaps Gianchedda back there in defence. Of course when I saw Lazio play with Gianchedda at the back he didn't really have to do much work though so I am not one to really comment on his ability in defence, though he does win a lot headers.

Anyway Lazio just has to concentrate on not getting relegated as you so far doing a half decent job of and just work with what you have and hope a someone from your youth system comes through really big for you.

 

[gogol]

I believe at the moment Liverani may just make the team unbalanced defensively. I know he’s creative, but not a player that can run back and make a saving tackle etc. I think, for now, for the opponents we have coming, Pandev/Cesar on the left with 3 defensive-minded mids would have to do. It means that we’ll play a more cut-and-thrust game instead of slow game.

 

[gogol]

The mids are also not helping out, as they should. When I watch Serie A, I see so many teams do the basics right in defense, and then get done in by the great pass or great goal. But we are completely the opposite.

 

[Anomander Rake]

We don't need three DMs since a big part of our defensive problems come from crosses which the DMs can hardly do anything to stop. Plus, Pandev hasn't been convincing when played as a midfieder so far and without Zauri his presence would make our left flank even more exposed.

Zauri is out for one more month.

 

[Kafka]

I think it illustrates our defensive situation perfectly well that we are missing Zauri to such great extent. Last season he rarely started even when healthy...and I can't blame Mancini for that, Favalli was better. But with the current squad Zauri is definitely needed.

Liverani must play. In the Caso era we saw the level of play-making game without him...