A 6-2 win that capped a long run
Lazio went to the Mapei Stadium on Tuesday and won 6-2 at Sassuolo, [1] reports. It was their eighth win in nine Serie A games. The only blemish in that run was a 2-2 home draw with Milan. The goals came from Taylor, Isaksen, Noslin and a double from Mattia Zaccagni, who was also involved in the build-up play.
The match turned early. Sassuolo were reduced to ten men in the 31st minute after Thorstvedt’s challenge on Zaccagni, and Lazio had the numbers to take advantage of it. The result extended a sequence that, in predict.game’s records, reads: 6-2 at Sassuolo, 2-1 at home to Parma, 3-0 at Juventus, 3-1 at home to Monza and 2-0 at Venezia. That is five straight league wins with 16 goals scored and only four conceded.
Overall Lazio have 25 points from nine games, with 22 goals for and 7 against. Our table lists them second. [2] has them joint top with Inter on the same 25 points, so the gap at the summit comes down to the tie-break rather than results.
Goals from everywhere
The most unusual number in Lazio’s start is how widely the scoring is spread. According to Football Italia, their 22 league goals have come from 12 different scorers. Only Barcelona have more across Europe’s top leagues. Few teams manage that kind of spread, and it means opponents cannot plan around stopping one player.
Tijjani Noslin leads the list with four goals. Gustav Isaksen and Davide Frattesi each have three. Zaccagni’s two at Sassuolo put him on the scoresheet again, and Taylor also scored in that game. The goals are shared across wide players, midfielders and the forward line, not funnelled through a single striker.
This cuts both ways. It is a sign of a well-drilled attack that creates chances for many players, and it protects Lazio if one scorer is missing for a game. But a team scoring from this many sources can also be hard to read. The input contains no injury or selection news, so we cannot say who starts against Cagliari. The pattern suggests that whoever plays, goals can arrive from several places.
Frattesi and the Gattuso effect
The start has surprised people, and [3] captured that when Frattesi spoke at Italy’s Coverciano training centre. Lazio had 13 points after five rounds, level with Inter and Roma, even though the season began badly with a Coppa Italia exit to Serie B side Mantova in mid-August.
Frattesi has three goals in five league appearances. He says that a reunion with Gennaro Gattuso at Lazio was a key reason for his summer move. That is a player’s own account, not a tactical analysis, but it fits what the results show: a squad that has bought into its coach quickly.
The contrast with August is useful for judging how much to read into the run. A cup defeat to a lower-division side would normally raise doubts about a team. Since then Lazio have lost no league game, beaten Juventus 3-0 away and scored six at Sassuolo. The early cup exit also means fewer fixtures to juggle, though the input does not say whether Lazio have other competitions to manage.
What it means
Lazio sit second in Serie A on 25 points from nine games, with a record of W8 D1 L0 and a goal difference of +15 (22 scored, 7 conceded). The five most recent results are all wins, and the form says this is a side that scores freely and rarely concedes more than once. Only the 2-2 draw with Milan has cost them points.
The next question is Cagliari at home on 1 November. Playing at the Olimpico after a 6-2 win, Lazio will be expected to carry on, and the main test is whether they can keep scoring against an opponent who may sit deeper than Sassuolo did with ten men. The 12-scorer spread suggests they have answers from several players, and Noslin’s four goals give them a reference point up front.
The site’s forecast for Lazio v Cagliari locks 24 hours before kick-off, and it will be graded publicly once the match is played. Until then, the data points one way, but nine games is a small sample, and the Sassuolo result in particular was helped by an early red card.
Sources
- The Guardian: High-flying Lazio’s thrashing of Sassuolo marked by Mussolini’s first Serie A goal | Nicky Bandini theguardian.com ↩
- Football Italia: Only Barcelona have more goalscorers than Lazio in Europe’s top leagues football-italia.net ↩
- Football Italia: Frattesi and Gattuso from Italy’s World Cup disappointment to Lazio surprise football-italia.net ↩
