The Exigent Duality
No Excuses - 06:56 CST, 4/21/19 (Sniper)
I know I'm working through a translation here, but I hate Inzaghi's response to yesterday's Chievo humiliation, and it tells me a lot about why the team has been in the doldrums since-- really-- dating back to the back portion of last season.

The game was not "tainted by the expulsion"-- Sergej didn't get sent off until the 34th minute. Inzaghi was using that as an excuse to get himself off the hook. In that entire third of the match with Sergej on the pitch, I saw some of the worst football I've ever seen Lazio play, and that includes the "which circle of hell are we in" Ballardini season. It wasn't until Parolo came on that I saw a player in blue who had absolutely any interest in acting professionally. In other words, I think we would have lost the match even had we been on eleven men!

As for Sergej, if I were manager I would sit him in the Milan Coppa match. I know it's a huge fixture for us, but no player is bigger than the team, no player is bigger than the manager. There are no excuses not just for what he did to get sent off, but how he was behaving even prior to that. I'm really getting the vibe that it's this lack of accountability in Lazio which is causing this team to be so very poor. Randy Moss was deliberately misconstrued when he supposedly said "I play when I want to play"-- but in Inzaghi's Lazio, that quote is accurate, and not just of Milinkovic-Savic!

If I owned the club, and once this dreadful season is over, I would take an "all of the above" approach: for starters, clean house with this roster, even if it meant not getting "top dollar" on the sales. Surely someone out there would pay a few million for even someone like Wallace; Luis Alberto and Sergej would both be gone; I'd use that cash to go shopping for a new play maker, and a pacey and dangerous wide player, who can also play wingback. And then I'd start making a list of the most exciting young managers in Europe, and have Inzaghi re-interview for his position.