Christian Kabasele was the latest guest to appear in the Udinese Tonight studio on Monday evening.
“It's not a good moment for us in terms of injuries. We haven't changed training methods but sometimes in football you get a bit more bad luck from one year to the next. I can't wait for Serie A to start again. Training is great but you feel the urge to get back into competitive action.
As for the team's three consecutive defeats: “We gifted our opponents the win. Against Lazio we played well for 60 minutes then dropped off physically and gave away two goals. If you manage to score two goals against Inter, you should come away with a point at least. We made too many mistakes – and it was the same against Cagliari. It's annoying because we our opponents weren't better than us but we gave things away.
“I think we're playing more or less the same way as last year, perhaps trying to be a little bit more proactive. When we need to defend, maybe we think too much about getting another goal and we end up coming under pressure. That's what happened against Lazio. We were caught on the break and it decided the game when we could have held onto a point. In our minds we want to have our say this season and not just think about staying up.
“We've been injury problems in defence and we have one of the worst defences in the league, like last season at this stage. We're scoring a lot but we're down the bottom in terms of defensive records. We need to get our balance right and playing lots of games with the same defenders helps.”
Kabasele also explained the defensive mix-up that led to Cagliari's goal in the last game.
“It was a misunderstanding between me, [Lennon] Miller and [Enzo] Ebosse. I told Lennon to get back into his position but we didn't understand each other. He passed the ball to my left and I thought it was for Enzo so I didn't go for it. Enzo called me and I tried to react but I wasn't in time. It really hurt because it didn't look good for Udinese. That's not the sort of goal you concede at this level. We'd created lots of chances in that game and we knew that if we conceded it would be hard to score against Cagliari. I was down for a long time after that match. The coach was angry. You might concede a goal if you don't mark properly or your opponents does something special but we can't concede like that.”
What about the club's new signing David Alaba?
“We've welcomed him in like any other player but it's hard because he's won four Champions Leagues. He's a world-class player. What I admire most about him is his humility. You can see what an incredible player he is in training. He can play in any position. He brings quality and experience and the sooner he's ready the sooner he'll be able to give us that extra quality.
“I think he came here because Udinese is well known in Europe as a club where players can come to play and rediscover their form in the right environment. Here he can work without the pressure you get at other clubs.”