25 August 2018
Massimiliano Allegri had plenty of praise for his team for winning a tricky fixture against Lazio on Saturday night – but stressed there is ample room for improvement for the Bianconeri to work on as the season progresses.
"We rushed things a bit at the start," said the coach after the final whistle. "There was a risk that we could get ahead of ourselves with all the excitement among the fans around Cristiano’s home debut. We needed to show a bit more patience.
"When [Paulo] Dybala isn’t playing we find it hard to move between the lines, but we needed to play with this kind of line-up today. Maybe I’ll pick more technical players for the game at Parma next week. At times our play is too frenetic and at others we go to sleep, but we need to move the ball more quickly when the opposition tire."
Allegri also acknowledged that the new signings will need time to bed into the side.
"We had new faces in [Joao] Cancelo, [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Leonardo] Bonucci coming back after a year, so we’ll need time to get to know each other," he said. "That said, we will improve and I’m pleased because this is an important win in our first match against a direct rival. It wasn’t easy to play against Lazio given their counter-attack, but the two centre-backs did well. I’m delighted with how Ronaldo is settling in."
