Udinese: Runjaic denies Zaniolo sub rumours, eyes Lazio response | OneFootball

In view of tomorrow's match against Lazio, Kosta Runjaic spoke at a press conference. Here are his statements.

Udinese, Runjaic: “Nonsense has been said about Zaniolo's substitution, we need to deliver a good performance against Lazio”

On the eve of the match against Lazio, Udinese's coach, Kosta Runjaic, spoke at a press conference, focusing on Zaniolo's situation. Here are his words, as reported by tmw:

On the reaction

“I agree, it was a poor performance, we had approached it well until the red card. You can lose playing with 10 men, but you must at least try to perform, which we didn't. We want to redeem ourselves against Lazio, we all expect a positive reaction after the defeat in Florence, it's not possible for a team to change so much between Napoli and Fiorentina, but we know that ups and downs are part of the growth process. However, you can't lose by conceding five goals and in that manner. We were coming off a good performance and we need to be that team, I can't guarantee the result, but we can do much better in terms of attitude, in front of our fans whose support has never wavered.

The beautiful side of football is that after a few days you can try to bounce back from a defeat, we analyzed the opponent and also talked about the fact that you can win even with 10 men, you must not give up. Napoli, after losing against us, reacted by winning the Super Cup, this is the difference between a team like ours and a great team, which maintains a high level of performance and reacts to defeats in this way.”

On Lazio

“We need to see a different Udinese on the field regardless of the opponent, Lazio has its own idea of football, we are ready and we must be ready to transfer the concepts tried in training onto the field. After the red card in Florence, we lacked our game principles, we lacked energy, we lacked aggression at certain moments, every player must support the other, through maturity we must deliver a good performance against Lazio.”

On Zaniolo

“Does he commit many fouls? We need to analyze all the fouls committed and sometimes some fouls called against him, in my opinion, weren't there, anyway, he's a player who fights a lot and also suffers many fouls, he takes many hits, he's a player who wants the ball, he's a very important player for us. He is a guy with very clear goals, I haven't noticed an excessive number of fouls from him, in a duel it's a 50/50, I am satisfied with his performances and his number of goals.

Then there have been some news about Zaniolo from the media, it is what it is and I can't do anything about it, but I can tell you that he is a very professional guy, who is investing a lot in us and in himself, it wasn't easy, he's a very important guy, but he can't decide every match, he's an emotional guy, it's a characteristic and a quality of his. He is much more mature compared to the past, sometimes he is too self-critical, he puts too much pressure on himself, we need to help him with this, he has no problems with his teammates, conflicts sometimes happen, we had a bad match against Fiorentina and it can happen, I didn't want to be disrespectful to any journalist, it can happen after such a match, in my opinion, after such an unexpected defeat in these terms, there's no need to talk much and it's useless to go into details and do a complete analysis.

Regarding Zaniolo once again, he is a fantastic guy, to be protected, he puts a lot of pressure on himself, sometimes too much, I think tomorrow he will have a great match in front of the fans who will support him, he knows he is very loved here. These have been difficult days for him too, nonsense has been written about why that substitution happened, the news about Zaniolo doesn't correspond to what happened, he is an important player for us, the relationship among the players is fine and Zaniolo shows his importance to us every day. As a technical staff, we also work to learn from match to match.”

On the conceded goals

“Yes, it's an issue, we have made several individual errors. In the world of sports, mistakes happen, we need to minimize them, then one mistake and we are immediately punished. The red card changed the game, it's not an excuse but it's still a fact, we suffered an avoidable red card and the dynamics of the match changed. We knew we would face a struggling Fiorentina, they got their first three points against us by exploiting the episode to turn the game in their favor. It's a matter that doesn't concern only the goalkeepers but also the outfield players, in ball management, in the attention given to the defensive phase. We want to avoid and reduce these errors to a minimum. When a goal is conceded, it's due to multiple errors.

Today we will have a final training session, there is still a session to analyze all the elements, no one is satisfied with the defeat in Florence and the number of errors made this season. However, there are still three games to close the first half of the season and with positive results, we can further improve our position. We must use this experience to improve in the coming months.”

Raffaele Morra

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.