Jurgen Ekkelenkamp guested on Udinese Tonight, a day after our 0-3 home defeat against Lecce. The Dutch midfielder discussed the team’s current situation and how we can get out of it, as well as his own start to the season.
Read what he had to say below:
“I really don’t know what happened yesterday - we played poorly. I don’t want to say too much – I’m just gutted. The dressing room was silent after the match, and it’s the same again today. The coach didn’t say much yesterday, but today we talked about the game. We reviewed it – we just made too many mistakes. I made one myself for Lecce’s third goal. It’s not about injuries - we simply played too poorly. It wasn’t an acceptable performance, regardless of any absentees.
“We talked a lot in the dressing room at half-time. We’d had a bad first 45 minutes and wanted to come back out after the break and really fight. However, two minutes in, we started making mistakes again, and our heads dropped once more.
“I never expected us to be in this situation right now - I don’t think anyone did. Talking about qualifying for Europe didn’t hurt us, and it wasn’t a bad idea to do so. We finished tenth last year, so I think it was only natural that such conversations came up. We’re not worried, and being scared would be detrimental anyway.
“I’ve had a good start to the season, but I would’ve preferred to have scored zero goals and ten points in the standings. I favour playing on the left, but with [Nicolo] Zaniolo out, [Giorgi] Chakvetadze is playing there. So, for the sake of the team, I play on the right.
“I feel like more like a leader than I did two years ago. I’ve now played 77 matches for Udinese, as such, I need to be a leader. [Arthur] Atta used to do a lot of running. He’s no longer at the club, so now it’s up to me to put in the hard yards.
“I want to say sorry to the fans for the current situation. They don’t deserve this, because their support for us is unwavering. It’s just not acceptable.”