Credit to him, even amidst a horror show and especially horrific first few minutes, he still managed to keep it together and win a handful of important tackles. Conte shouldn't ever put Lazaro on to defend a lead. Obviously we're short on personnel but even still.
If he wanted to give Lazaro time, he should've brought him on earlier when we were still playing football, not when the game had deteriorated into a defensive training exercise. Still though, it was hopefully a valuable lesson. Lazaro needs to start a game, get involved in, and get used to managing the different stages of the match - from implementing our gameplan from minute 1, to defending and so on. Really hope he gets a full 90 against Parma. Especially with D'Ambrosio out, Candreva's going to have to do a shit ton over the coming weeks.
While I'm on that, I understand the notion: sit deeper, defend the lead, bring on Politano and use his pace and directness for counterattacking opportunities. It's nice in theory but it really isn't working out in practice. That's partly because Politano isn't some high quality forward with devastating speed and counterattacking ability like Salah or Mane. Plus, partly because we can't defend a lead for shit. Conte's got a lot of work to do.
