Lazio coach Maurizio Sarri was happy after victory over Sampdoria on Monday night.

Samp lost 1-0 on Monday night after Luis Alberto's superb strike for the Romans.

“It was only to be expected we weren't at our best, having five or six players who were in Romania on Thursday, and had to force the return of Milinkovic-Savic, Pedro and Zaccagni early from fairly serious problems," Sarri told Sky Italia.

“Apart from a 10-minute wobble at the start of the second half, I liked the team overall. It ended up being a tight win, even though we had eight or nine scoring opportunities."

On Luis Alberto, Sarri continued: “He knows what I want from the team. At a certain point in the season, I saw him training in a completely different way, with a determination I had never seen in him before. By changing the way he trains, he is now having an extraordinary period of form.

“At the start, he struggled to accept what I was asking for, but today Luis Alberto is a very important player for us. He is very intelligent tactically too, when you ask something, he understands quickly what he has to do, even if before he pretended not to understand…"