Kosta Runjaic sat down with the media on Friday to discuss Udinese's home game with Venezia. This is what the boss had to say...
“We've been working hard. Tomorrow I want to see the team giving everything they've got from the opening minute – which is not what I saw against Roma. It was a solid performance but I didn't see the fire within, which you need especially when you're playing at home. We need to win tomorrow – though Venezia want to win too – and we need to create the conditions for it to happen. We can do that by playing with the right mentality, the right desire and the spirit from the very start. If we do that, we'll have a good game.
“We have the quality to make it hard for Venezia. They're second from bottom but we know they can be dangerous – the reverse fixture is a warning for us in that sense. They have a great mentality. They're always ready to play. They have good potential and they'll do everything they can to stay up.
"Injuries like [Isaak] Toure's can happen in football and tomorrow we'll be without [Jesper] Karlstrom too – and he's become a leader of this team. We knew that sooner or later he might not be able to play and someone will have to replace him but regardless of the formation or the line-up tomorrow we need fire in our bellies – there can be no excuses. Against Roma I didn't see the reaction I wanted – and I'm not just talking about the result. Serie A is a tough league and if you're not fully focused, or if you run a bit less, every match is tricky.
“[Lautaro] Giannetti and [Keinan] Davis will rejoin the team next week then we'll see how they get on. [Oier] Zarraga has been training with the team for a week now. He's not yet back to where he was before his injury but he'll be on the bench tomorrow and can play if we need him.
“We're in the middle of a process of improvement. The match against Atalanta is the model – something we need to replicate not just for one match but for the entire season. To do that, we need the right mentality, tactics and technique, energy, ability to respond and adapt to situations, and many other things. At the moment we're not doing all of that consistently. We're working to get there but you have to keep reminding the team what matters and motivate them to improve constantly. Some teams have individuals who can win games even when they're not playing well – Milan, for example, have those two or three top-quality players who can do that, as they did against Parma. We don't have those players but we do have lots of good players and we have to create the conditions for them to perform at their best.
The league table tells you where a team is at and our current trend is not good – it's a similar points average to previous years, and that's not what we want. We need to improve in lots of areas. We're working with a plan in mind but it's up to the lads to prove themselves on the pitch. Tomorrow, after two defeats in a row, we need a reaction. We could have done better against Roma. The referee can't be an excuse.
“Results are one thing, statistics another. You always look at the points but at the start of the season we got three points against Como when they missed a penalty, a point against Bologna when they dominated the game, three against Lazio when they could have drawn. You have to look at the bigger picture. I draw my conclusions from what I see in training. It's easy to say 'We got this many points with this formation so we should continue with that.' Football doesn't work like that.
We made a superb start to the season but those ten points didn't show us the way forward and we didn't rest on our laurels. Results are achieved not by the formation but by your attitude, togetherness, concentration and communication. And the key to it all is the players who go out there. We can change formation, play with two or three forwards, with or without [Alexis] Sanchez, but then we need to ask ourselves: 'Did those who played always perform they way they were expected to?' Now we need to focus on tomorrow and we expect a reaction. At our home ground, the team must go out there energised from the very first minute.”