Furious Fiorentina boss Vincenzo Italiano has fired back at booing fans who turned on La Viola in Monday’s 4-0 annihilation at the hands of Lazio.
The Florence side were unable to build on their convincing 3-0 European win at Hearts on their return to domestic action and were booed off at the Artemio Franchi stadium. Hearts take on Fiorentina, who are only four points clear of the relegation zone in Serie A, in Florence on Thursday night in a crucial Europa Conference League Group A clash that will go a long way to deciding a top two place.
And Italiano admits seeing the supporters' reaction at full-time left him disappointed. He said: “Unfortunately we pay for what is a huge evil in a football team, not being able to score goals. We take the boos and the disappointment of our fans, last year we created a huge enthusiasm, but now going out amidst the booing leaves me with a huge bitterness and is a defeat for all of us.”
Despite finding the net with ease at Tynecastle, Fiorentina’s woes in front of goal domestically continued. They have now only found the net four times in their last eight league games.
Italiano added: “Monday was an important crossroads for us, we aimed to give consistency after the Conference League win. When you shoot 25 times on goal and create a lot, the coach can’t overturn everything, we can’t score goals and we lose games. We created a lot, in the first 10 minutes we could have scored three goals. Lazio showed that they were stronger than us. "Unfortunately we paid for our lack of concreteness, we did what we had to do but the result is a 0-4, which is a lie.
“We lack incisiveness, concreteness and the hit that allows us to address the match as we did in Scotland. Lazio are Fiorentina’s black beast, we have changed a few situations compared to last year. I thought I had found the solution, but we are talking about a 0-4. Congratulations to our opponents. who suffered our game for long stretches but came home with four goals scored.”
