Having managed Lazio for more than four years, Simone Inzaghi is the second longest-tenured active manager in Serie A. It’s not a small feat, considering that only a few coaches, like Maximiliano Allegri (Juventus) and Gian Piro Gasperini (Atalanta), have been able to stay in their jobs for that long in Italy. It’s also surprising because Inzaghi has a relatively thin resume compared to those two.
Inzaghi and Lazio fit like Japanese joinery; Claudio Lotito looks for bargains. And for his price, Inzaghi brings a lot to the table (one Coppa Italia, one SupperCoppa, and three European qualifications). Their limited budget means Lazio’s transfer policy is a perfectly balanced scale: nothing significant enters unless something significant leaves. At times they are like a stagnant pond, waiting for one of those bargains to turn into a rock and make spatters. Joaquin Correa is that rock.
Unleashing Luis Alberto
The Argentine was brought in to replace Felipe Andersen. On the surface, Correa overlaps with Luis Alberto, with both players relying on their technique rather than other physical attributes. There is one critical difference; Correa is a typical secondary striker while Alberto plays much better as a midfielder than as a forward:
Correa is an amazing dribbler, creating one Expected Goal (xG) with fewer than 20 dribbles, top 1% among qualified attackers in Serie A since 2014/15. His shot selection is above average, (0.13 per shot this season, top 30%). In contrast, Alberto’s biggest weapon is his passes; he makes one throughball per 37 – 55 passes in the last two seasons at Lazio, placing him in the 97th – 99th percentile. But his shot decision is poor (0.07 – 0.08 xG per shot, bottom 17 – 27%). Clearly, Correa works well when he plays close to the goal, while Alberto excels when he can direct play from further back.
Inzaghi does exactly what’s most effective; he now pairs Correa with Ciro Immobile on the front line and has Alberto start as the left central midfielder in a 3-5-2. This change has a domino effect, with the Spaniard taking over the playmaking duty: Alberto’s betweenness, a metric that measured how often a player bridges two others in a pass network, has increased from 4 to more than 9 since Correa joined Lazio in 2018/19. His xG:xB (xG:xBuildup) ratio also decreases from 0.25 in 2017/18 to 0.18 this season, the lowest in his Lazio’s career. Correa’s arrival allows Alberto to do what he does best.
Working the outside channel
The Argentine also allows Inzaghi to target the outside channel, the space between the full-back and the center-back, in a way he couldn’t have done before:
Last season Inzaghi was testing the ideas, but this season he completely changes his script. Lazio’s offense is much improved, creating close to 1.9 xG per game this season, >20% than any other seasons Inzaghi has been in charge.
The outside channel is different from the inside one in how it can affect the movement of the opponent’s defenders; whenever a gap arises in the last line of defense, especially when you are sitting deep, the surrounding defenders respond by squeezing toward the opening. The inside channel is essentially in the middle, and the defenders on both sides will squeeze, making a compact but narrow shape. On the contrary, when the outside channel is opened, the defenders shift toward the gap. Since each of the adjacent players has to move in the same direction, each of the adjacent channels can be expanded if the timing of the shift is off.
Inzaghi’s idea is to first open the outside channel on one side and then attack each one of the adjacent channels one by one.
The first device to open the channel is to use their wing-back to pull out the opponent’s full-back away from his defensive position:
In their fully-transformed attacking shape, Lazio’s wing-back positions deep into the opponent’s territory. Sometimes the opponent doesn’t take the bait. Lazio can then deploy their second device:
Stefan Radu will push up and join Senad Lulic to overload the defender. This way, the defender has to decide whether he wants to stay in his position to prevent the channel from opening or lets Radu/Lulic penetrate the flank.
Worse, Correa will attack the flank when he moves wide. This is ridiculously dangerous for the opponent; with his dribbles, Correa can easily get into the box. Once inside, the defender has limited options to contain him. Lazio didn’t have this luxury before Correa’s arrival. Yes, Alberto could do these things too. But Lazio didn’t have other players who could make the required penetrative passes consistently. Correa and Immobile taking turns in and out of the channel also creates uncertainty, making it difficult for the opponent to set up its defense:
In Serie A, a lot of teams play with a back-three that turns into a back-five when sitting deep. The five defenders protect the channel much better than a back-four does. But to Lazio, it just means running their move an extra time:
When the outside channel finally opens, Lazio present another dilemma to the opponent; should your center-back slide over to cover the Lazio’s attacker? You almost have no choice but to do that, with Correa being so dangerous inside the box. But when you do, the adjacent channel of that center-back immediately opens:
Allowing Immobile to shoot from there is equal to death. This is what a good offense does. It makes you pick your own poison.
A lot of times a Lazio’s attacker initially positions in the space between the lines. The opponent can chase him with one of their midfielders to avoid destabilizing the last defensive line. But doing so weakens the coverage in the zone 14 where dangerous Lazio’s shooters like Sergej Milinkovic-Savic lurks around.
The Serbian is also a fail-safe for Lazio; the opponent’s defense can move well enough to close down Immobile/Correa immediately and leave no gap behind. In that case, it’s Milinkovic-Savic’s turn to attack the channel:
A team with a back-four has to deploy the central midfielder or the full-back to engage him since the two center-backs will already have been occupied by Correa and Immobile. Either way, Milinkovic-Savic will dominate the air: almost no one in those positions has a physique like his. The extra center-back in a back-three may be helpful, but you lose a covering player inside the box where other Lazio players prowl around for the second ball. Another dilemma, another poison to pick:
Lazio can routinely create a dilemma in the first outside channel on the flank and sweep it across the opponent’s defense, hitting each of the adjacent channels like a wave. They couldn’t do that before Correa’s arrival:
The Argentine also changes how Lazio defend in transitions:
With Alberto taking over the playmaking, Lucas Levia can spend most of his time covering his attacking teammates:
His % of the team’s total defensive challenge and interception increase from 15.4 and 17.7 to 20 and 18.8 when he starts, placing him in the 99 and 95 percentile, respectively; Lazio also concede only about 0.01 xG per counter-attack this term, at least 30% lower than they have done since Inzaghi was appointed.
Tweaks like these – inserting a new player into the line-up, or swapping the position of a player – can sometimes make a significant improvement to a team like Lazio with a stable roster over the years and a coach having an iron grip on the characteristics of the players. But tweaks can only make spatters. They may not last. Once they subside, Lazio will have to start looking for a new thing that can shake their dead pond.
