Lazio’s opening goal against Parma was a thing of beauty. Luis Alberto collected the ball inside his own half, pinged a perfectly weighted through ball into the path of Ciro Immobile and the Italy international finished expertly, despite being on his wrong foot at a tight angle.
In comparison, the second goal was something of a rarity in that it didn’t involve either of those players. Sergej Milinkovic-Savic dinked a ball into the path of Adam Marusic to finish.
The Alberto-Immobile axis has been at the centre of Lazio’s attacking thrust this season. Between them, they’ve been involved in six of the eight goals the Aquile have scored, be it by putting the ball in the net themselves or assisting a team-mate.
Marusic’s strike and Bastos’ explosive finish against Cluj have been the only times so far that Simone Inzaghi’s side have found a way through without the help of one of Alberto or Immobile.
While those of a negative persuasion could read this as over-dependence on a small fraction of the squad, it does tell us that Alberto and Immobile have returned to the peak of their powers after ending the last campaign poorly.
Lazio can be their own worst enemy
Lazio like playing Parma. They’ve beaten them in each of their last five meetings, they’ve won their last six encounters in Rome, and they were 1-0 up within eight minutes on Sunday.
Given the standing of the two teams – one with aspirations of European qualification, the other of mid-table security – it should’ve been routine from there on in.
But after squandering 1-0 leads twice within the space of a week against SPAL and Cluj to lose both games 2-1, taking an early advantage only appeared to make Lazio more nervous.
They tried to continue to stitch together intricate patterns, but the passes were suddenly going astray. The nervous energy was palpable. ‘Surely it can’t happen again?’ was certainly in the minds of the fans, but it appeared to also be what the players were thinking.
At no point was this more evident than when Luiz Felipe and Thomas Strakosha had a breakdown in communication that left the goalkeeper scrambling to stop the Brazilian’s backpass going into an unguarded net. He didn’t keep calm when he got there either, but rushed a clearance that fell straight to a Parma attacker.
Lazio survived these mishaps and ultimately put in a second half performance that was a big improvement on those that came earlier in the week.
But they are crying out for some game management in these moments, for the leaders on the pitch to take control of the situation and keep everyone calm.
It’s one thing taking these risks against Parma, it’ll be another thing entirely if they are so lax when they travel to Inter on Wednesday.
Should we worry about Parma?
Parma’s season will be judged more on their meetings with the teams around them than it will on these results.
Having said that, they sniffed an opportunity before half time in this game and were a Strakosha save away from getting back in it.
On paper, things are hardly desperate for Roberto D’Aversa’s men. Yes, they’ve lost three out of four but two of those games were against Lazio and Juventus and the other was at home to a fired-up Cagliari side.
When it came to the crunch in terms of facing a direct relegation rival, they got a 3-1 win away to Udinese.
But look further back and you start to see why some fans are getting the jitters. Parma’s relatively comfortable survival last season came courtesy of good early-season form, which overshadowed a terrible run that saw them win just two of their final 18 games, a run stretching all the way back to January.
D’Aversa needs to stop the rot fast and their upcoming run of fixtures must be targeted as an opportunity to do just that.
A derby with Sassuolo comes next on Wednesday before they host Torino, travel to SPAL and face a home clash with Genoa.
