Following Udinese’s match against Lecce, coach Kosta Runjaic and Jakub Piotrowski answered questions from the press.
Runjaic: “It’s the worst game we’ve played since I arrived in Udine. We lost the physical duels, we were careless and we lacked focus. We were unable to find any effective solution to hurt Lecce. I take full responsibility for these five consecutive defeats. We sometimes said that we were unlucky, but not today. Today’s performance was a bad one.
“With the only exceptions of [Keinan] Davis and [David] Alaba, in the first half the team did not put up a good performance and we made many mistakes. [Maduka] Okoye also did a good job and did his part. However, you win and you lose together; I didn’t expect such a game. Lecce made things very hard for us and put us under a lot of pressure. We need to ask ourselves why this happened.
“I’m focused on the team; the rest is out of my control. I believe I can find a way out of this for the team even though it’s a tough situation. Everyone who is passionate about Udinese realises this. I take full responsibility. The club knows how to handle these situations. I’m very disappointed and sorry for the fans, but that’s football: today it’s our opponents who get to celebrate.
“Alaba spoke a lot to his team-mates. However, I don’t want to talk about individual players. I am to blame for today’s loss. I subbed David [Alaba] out because he felt a twinge and I didn’t want to take that risk. He can play in any position. We decided that the best thing to do was to play direct football. His attributes are different from those of [Oumar] Solet. He reads the game very well and is very experienced. [Jurgen] Ekkelenkamp always moved a lot and changed position throughout the game. [Giorgi] Chakvetadze had done well against Torino, so we had no reason to make changes.
“Today’s performance is unacceptable. We lost all duels and loose balls. I am extremely disappointed. Congratulations to Lecce. We started off quite well. We knew that Lecce were good at set-pieces. The first goal gave them confidence and they ran even more. It’s not about how much you run, but rather about getting the timing right. We’ll take the rest of the day to think about it and tomorrow we’ll get back to work.”
Piotrowski: “I don’t know what changed in the team while I was gone. We got off to a good start this season. Then I saw how our games against Torino and Cagliari went and I believe that we didn’t deserve to lose. Today, on the other hand, we endured a bad defeat. We didn’t create anything and Lecce dominated the game. It’s hard to say what has changed. We must remain united and find a way out of it. We have quality and we don’t belong in this position in the table. We need to change something and we must do it together. We can do a lot better than this.
“Not playing wasn’t easy. Before the problem I had I felt very good on the pitch. Then I had to stop playing for five weeks and it wasn’t easy, as I wanted to help my team. I want to give everything to this team. I’m happy I’m back. Playing after just one week of training was challenging. Now I need to focus on what lies ahead and get back in form.”