Udinese sporting director Pierpaolo Marino was a guest on “Udinese Tonight”, the club’s talk show hosted by Giorgia Bortolossi. Here’s some of what he had to say on the programme:
“It’s hard to properly judge the team right now. People base football on a club’s league ranking, and we haven’t picked up a lot of points in recent games. Udinese are a team which go through good and bad spells: for example, last season we got points on the board at the start of the campaign, whereas this season the opposite has happened. We should be aiming for tenth place or higher in order to avoid falling into a battle down the bottom; there are some great sides with top players and staff who are doing well.
“It’s hard to properly judge the team right now. People base football on a club’s league ranking, and we haven’t picked up a lot of points in recent games. Udinese are a team which go through good and bad spells: for example, last season we got points on the board at the start of the campaign, whereas this season the opposite has happened. We should be aiming for tenth place or higher in order to avoid falling into a battle down the bottom; there are some great sides with top players and staff who are doing well.
“We’ve not scored a lot of goals; it’s a continuation of how recent seasons have been. Udinese have never found the net with great frequency on the road and goal difference can become important. In fact, I’d say that it’s an important way to judge how balanced a side is. The way I see it is that the team has got the potential to score more goals than it’s done so far. For large parts of games we play conservatively but sometimes we’ll have lapses in concentration which prove fatal.
“I thought that we approached Sunday’s game in Milan in the correct manner and I was happy with the scoreline going into the break. However, we went into the second half lacking courage, we cowered in the face of Inter. We need to speak about this within the club because the squad’s got potential. Given we’re a third of the way into the season, I think it’s time for us to really show what we’re made of.
“I thought that we approached Sunday’s game in Milan in the correct manner and I was happy with the scoreline going into the break. However, we went into the second half lacking courage, we cowered in the face of Inter. We need to speak about this within the club because the squad’s got potential. Given we’re a third of the way into the season, I think it’s time for us to really show what we’re made of.
“We need to work on channelling criticism and self-criticism into something constructive. The team is struggling to free itself; it’s ready to take off but we just need to light the ignition.
“Problems that were present last season are resurfacing this time out. I’m convinced that it’s just a question of getting momentum and we’ll be in with a shout of finishing in the top ten; the team was built for this. The club has made every possible means available to us and we must do our best to achieve our objectives. We just need to get things off the ground.”