Pierpaolo Marino says Udinese's disappointing end to the 2020/21 season must be analysed in the cold light of day, with everyone assuming part of the responsibility.
The Udinese sporting director was speaking as this week's guest on Udinese Tonight.
“The fans are brilliant. They came along to the training ground on Saturday to thank the team and encourage them ahead of our trip to Milan. It was really quite moving.
“Our 14th-place finish is more like joint 13th because we have the same points as Fiorentina and the same head-to-head record so it comes down to the overall goal difference. I'm not trying to justify anything because the latter part of the season was dreadful results-wise and that's something we should reflect upon and analyse to help plan for the future. When the results are lacking for so long and the defeats so heavy – losing 5-1 to Napoli and Inter is not normal for Udinese – you need to take a long, hard look at things and everyone has to take some of the blame
“There have been highs and lows this season that we need to examine. It's true that we got off to a bad start – I think losing five of the first six games only happened once, with [Francesco] Guidolin – but the year was anything but disappointing until 11 games ago, before things went wrong at the end. We all need to take a look at ourselves – myself included because I've experienced a lot and I'm not used to results like this. Clearly I wasn't careful enough about the risk of us easing up or the dangers of the matches we had to play. The blame doesn't lie with a single person or with the players; it's a combination of things that didn't work. I'm very disappointed and angry because clearly we came up short.”