Lazio scored six goals at Sassuolo on Tuesday night and went back to the top of Serie A. Gennaro Gattuso’s team won 6-2 at the Mapei Stadium, and they could have scored even more. Sassuolo goalkeeper Stefano Turati saved two penalties.
Lazio have now won eight of their nine league games and drawn the other one. That is 25 points, and a three-point lead over Inter before the champions play Venezia on Wednesday.
Four goals in 16 minutes
The game was wild from the start. Kenneth Taylor put Lazio ahead after two minutes, and Kristian Thorstvedt equalised for Sassuolo five minutes later. Then Lazio pulled away. Gustav Isaksen scored from a tight angle in the 13th minute and Romano Floriani got his first goal for the club in the 16th.
Four goals in the first 16 minutes had not happened in a Serie A game since April 2019.
Sassuolo lost Thorstvedt soon after the half-hour. He was sent off for a late tackle on Mattia Zaccagni. Sebastiano Esposito still pulled one back for the ten men two minutes before the break, but Zaccagni made it 4-2 in stoppage time.
Noslin finishes it off
Tijjani Noslin scored twice after half-time, ten minutes apart. Lazio also had two penalties. Turati stopped the first from Zaccagni and the second from Davide Frattesi.
Zaccagni had a big night anyway. On top of his goal he set up two more. Nobody on the pitch created more chances.
Lazio have not lost any of their first nine league games of a season for the first time since 1999-2000. That was the last year they won the title. Five different Lazio players scored, which last happened in March 2018.
Gattuso is not looking at the table
Gattuso was happy with the result but not with all of the defending. “The thing I will take from this is the mentality,” he said after the game. “When we are not being aggressive, we have to learn how to block defensively.”
He also admitted that the red card made life easier. “It helped that they were down to 10 men,” he said.
Asked about the title race, he kept it short. “We’re not looking at the standings, otherwise we’ll get vertigo. We’re taking things game by game.”
Our take
This is the best start Lazio have had in more than 25 years, and the goals are coming from all over the team. Taylor, Isaksen, Floriani, Zaccagni and Noslin all scored, so opponents cannot just stop one man.
Still, Gattuso is right to worry. Sassuolo scored twice and had chances even with ten men. Inter and the other big clubs will be less forgiving than that.
Can Lazio keep this up all season, or will the defence cost them before Christmas? Tell us in the comments.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Gennaro Gattuso by Ludovic Péron (CC BY-SA 3.0), Gennaro Gattuso by Jorge-11 and Simo82 (CC BY-SA 3.0), Mapei Stadium by Vincenzo.togni (CC BY 4.0), Stadio Olimpico by Zakarie Faibis (CC BY-SA 4.0).