Lazio’s season is taking shape through players who had begun to feel peripheral. At Formello, Gennaro Gattuso has made renewed responsibility a central part of his work, bringing Mandas, Nuno Tavares, Reda Belahyane and Tijjani Noslin back into the centre of the project after periods of doubt, waiting and tactical uncertainty.
The coach has not allowed earlier verdicts to dictate his choices. His approach has been to involve the whole squad, treating the summer as an opportunity to alter not only selections but the players’ sense of their own standing within the club. Those who felt overlooked in July have been offered a route back, and Lazio are benefiting from the response.
Mandas is no longer simply the goalkeeper waiting behind Ivan Provedel. After an extended spell as deputy and six months on loan at Bournemouth, the Greek wanted a greater role. Gattuso placed his faith in him rather than pursuing alternatives such as Michele Di Gregorio, and the decision has been repaid in key moments. Mandas made important contributions against Bologna, Udinese and Milan; in Venice he stopped Yeboah from the penalty spot to keep Lazio alive before half-time, while he also proved decisive during a difficult spell against Monza.
Tavares has found a different kind of restoration. Maurizio Sarri had doubted whether the Portuguese defender suited his demands, viewing him as too unpredictable in possession and too vulnerable when defending within a back four. Gattuso has instead encouraged the qualities that make him distinctive: his running, direct instincts and natural energy. Rather than asking him to suppress them, Lazio’s coach has given him the freedom he felt he lacked.
That choice also persuaded Tavares to leave behind the comfort he had found under Francesco Farioli at Porto. Within a month, he had earned a call-up to Jorge Jesus’s national team and scored his first Serie A goal, turning what had appeared to be a difficult career passage into a fresh start in Rome.
Belahyane and Noslin find their place
Belahyane’s path had been still more complicated. Marco Baroni had not supported the midfielder’s arrival in January 2025, having preferred Cesare Casadei, and Lazio had spent 18 months questioning an investment of €9 million. Sarri considered the Moroccan more suitable as a mezzala but felt he lacked the pace and intensity required at the highest level.
Gattuso has recalled how demanding the summer camp was for Belahyane. Training in 40-degree heat, the player fainted twice and came close to believing that his physique and characteristics could not withstand such an exacting game. Nicolò Rovella’s injury changed the shape of the season, however, and created an opening that Belahyane has seized.
He has become a dependable midfield resource through discipline, pressing and work without the ball. His figures underline that contribution: seven tackles won, 29 recoveries and a 94 per cent pass-completion rate. They are the numbers of a player rebuilding his value through the less visible labour that holds a side together.
Noslin’s issue was not application but identity. An attacker without a defined role can quickly become a substitute for every occasion and a first choice for none. Gattuso has given him a clearer function as a link-forward: a false nine able to combine with teammates, provide lay-offs and arrive in the area. The aim has been to ensure he is not merely an emergency option, but a forward with a recognisable purpose.
These recoveries have helped change Lazio’s internal atmosphere as much as their matchday options. Not every effect is captured in a tactical diagram or a statistical column, but players who feel needed tend to change the tone of a dressing room and, eventually, the course of afternoons.
Gattuso remains careful about where the momentum may lead. “We have nothing to do with first place,” he has said, insisting that Lazio must remain grounded. Sporting director Angelo Fabiani has identified European qualification as the club’s priority, and the difference in emphasis is revealing rather than divisive: the board is setting a target, while the coach is protecting a group still being rebuilt.
For now, Lazio’s strength lies in that realism. Gattuso has not promised a title challenge; he has restored players once left on the margins and given the side room to surprise itself.
