Inter Milan boss Antonio Conte admits he was relieved to see off Lazio.
Danilo D'Ambrosio's header proved the winner, with goalkeeper Samir Handanovic outstanding.
This was a game of two halves," Conte told Sky Sport Italia.
We started aggressive, Lazio were sitting back and waiting to hit us on the counter-attacks with pacey players like Joaquin Correa and Felipe Caicedo, then caused problems for us when we lost the ball.
After the goal, we got a little deeper and must recognise that Handanovic made some excellent saves. In the second half, we played with character, consolidating and deserving the victory, seeing as we had numerous scoring opportunities.
It is a valuable victory against a very strong opponent that reinforced over the summer and has been working with Simone Inzaghi for four years.
I wasn't happy in the first half, because you end up drowning in those situations, but we dominated after the break and created many chances to double our lead. Lazio were dangerous on set plays, as they are very good in the air.
We tip our hat to Lazio for a good performance, but we won a difficult match."
