Three Things We Learned from Lazio vs Roma: Nuno Tavares the Derby Scapegoat | OneFootball

While the Derby della Capitale presented Lazio with a golden opportunity to start anew, it ended up aggravating the club’s open wounds, as Roma prevailed thanks to Lorenzo Pellegrini’s solitary strike.

If losing the most important fixture of the season wasn’t devastating enough, Maurizio Sarri may have also lost four midfielders on one hot Roman morning, as Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Nicolo Rovella succumbed to injury, while Reda Belahyane and Matteo Guendouzi got themselves sent off.

This contest left us with a flurry of talking points, but we chose to focus on the following three:

Maurizio Sarri is Not Faultless

If there’s one Serie A manager who doesn’t risk the sack this season, it has to be Maurizio Sarri. After all, so much has been made of the 66-year-old’s willingness to stick around despite the damning transfer ban that prevented him from adding new players to his squad, and instead forced him to improvise solutions with those he has at his disposal.

Nevertheless, the manager wasn’t completely blameless in the Derby defeat. While Nuno Tavares was undoubtedly the main culprit on Pellegrini’s winner, as he gifted the ball away inside his own box, this action arguably stemmed from Sarri’s insistence on playing the ball from the back, which is a particularly dangerous ploy against a Gian Piero Gasperini side that enjoys pressing high.

The Portuguese defender’s blunder proved immensely costly, but Ivan Provedel and the Lazio defenders had also given away possession while attempting short passes at the back, but the difference is that their mistakes went unpunished.

Lazio Lacking the Right Mentality

After committing the aforementioned error, replays showed Tavares being scolded by Mattia Zaccagni. Even in his post-match interviews, the Lazio captain hardly minced his words, as he described it as a ‘stupid mistake’. Sarri didn’t offer words of consolation either, but instead admitted that the Portuguese’s blunder was the reason behind the defeat.

While the manager and skipper were simply stating facts, there’s little to gain from publicly crucifying one of the club’s biggest assets at a time when the team should be seeking locker-room unity. Moreover, the silly red cards collected by Reda Belahyane and Matteo Guendouzi show that this Lazio side lacks maturity as well as cool heads.

Hence, the Aquile aren’t only lagging behind other clubs in terms of technical quality, but also on the psychological level.

European Hopes Already Fading?

With only three points to show from their first four fixtures, Lazio certainly haven’t presented themselves as a genuine challenger for European spots.

While we can expect the team’s results to improve in the coming weeks (surely they can’t get any worse), it might not be sufficient to break into the Top 6, especially with the likes of Como, Fiorentina and Bologna emerging as contenders, not to mention the traditional forces of Italian football who are way ahead of the Aquile already.

As briefly yet concisely stated by one of our regular readers in the comment section, this is going to be a long season for Lazio…