Lazio are actively working to offload Petar Ratkov this summer, with Southampton among the clubs monitoring the 23-year-old forward, and a third unnamed side now entering the picture. The transfer push comes as the Biancocelesti navigate one of the more turbulent pre-seasons in recent memory, a context that makes Ratkov's departure feel less like a calculated upgrade and more like a club shedding weight under pressure.
The numbers behind Ratkov's season explain why Lazio are willing to move him on. In eight Serie A appearances under Maurizio Sarri, the Serbian forward contributed zero goals and zero assists, averaging a rating of 6.40. His AI overall score sits at 52 out of 100, with a ceiling projected at 62 — figures that suggest a player with room to develop but not one who has yet justified a starting role at a club with European ambitions. For a forward, the absence of any direct contribution across eight matches is the kind of record that makes a sale straightforward to justify internally.
The broader Lazio picture complicates his situation further. The club finished the 2025-26 Serie A season ninth, collecting 54 points from 38 matches — a return of 14 wins, 12 draws, and 12 defeats, with 41 goals scored against 40 conceded. That near-symmetry between attack and defence tells its own story: a team that neither dominated nor was dominated, one that drifted through the campaign without a clear identity. Sarri's side scored just 41 times across the season, a total that underlines why a forward who contributed nothing in front of goal could not hold his place.
The atmosphere around the club has deteriorated sharply. Lazio were eliminated from the Coppa Italia by Mantova, a Serie B side, in front of a half-empty Olimpico — the sparse attendance a product of an organised fan boycott directed at club president Claudio Lotito. Gennaro Gattuso, who has since taken the managerial reins, was publicly criticised in the aftermath. It is a club in institutional friction, and that friction tends to accelerate the exits of players who were already peripheral.
For Ratkov, the question is whether a move to Southampton — or whichever third club crystallises its interest — represents a genuine step forward or simply a lateral shift. At 23, with a projected ceiling of 62, he is a player who needs minutes and confidence, not a more prestigious bench. Southampton's interest, if it materialises into a concrete offer, could give him exactly that: a platform where the expectation is lower and the opportunity to accumulate the kind of direct contributions his Lazio record entirely lacks.
The summer will define whether Ratkov's time in Rome was a detour or a dead end.