“I’m so happy for the lads – it’s a reward for weeks of hard work.” Gabriele Cioffi, who spent Monday evening’s match energetically prowling his technical area, was keen to express his delight after Udinese claimed an impressive 2-1 away win over Lazio:
“It’s been hard to manage the pressure but everyone deserves this feeling of happiness we have now. We need to keep our feet on the ground. We’re closer to achieving our objective, but we’re not there yet. Given that we’re used to being on a bit of a roller coaster we need to just stay focused on getting a result at home.
“I had no doubts over Oier Zarraga. If you work hard you’ll get your rewards. Roberto Pereyra was back on form and acted as a guiding beacon for the whole 100 minutes of play. Florian Thauvin played a blinder and we saw the return of Jaka Bijol. The whole team performed well – it was a stellar collective effort. As I said before, we need to keep our feet on the ground because we’ve got a huge match on Saturday.
“We need to channel the positive emotions we’ve felt today against Torino and give our fans a win to cheer about. I’m convinced that if there’s a positive atmosphere the players will repay the Udinese faithful.”