Davide Nicola admits Udinese didn’t put in the most sparkling performance on his debut, but “in the circumstances” the victory over Roma will do nicely.
Rodrigo De Paul got the only goal at the Dacia Arena, ending a run of one point from seven rounds under previous tactician Julio Velazquez.
Davide Nicola admits Udinese didn’t put in the most sparkling performance on his debut, but “in the circumstances” the victory over Roma will do nicely.
Rodrigo De Paul got the only goal at the Dacia Arena, ending a run of one point from seven rounds under previous tactician Julio Velazquez.
“Winning against Roma is always gratifying for the club, the fans and the lads. We faced a very strong side, everyone knows this, so we had to play along certain principles and concepts,” Nicola told Sky Sport Italia.
“I am very happy, as the players followed every direction with great focus. I blindly believe the difference is made largely by transitions in football, so I asked them to close down certain spaces. We weren’t able to do all of them and were not as attacking as we’d like, but at this moment we had to pay more attention to other areas.
“We weren’t intent on pressing them high up, as Roma are very good at avoiding that kind of pressing, so we decided to start the pressure more in the middle of the park and break down their wide passing chains.
“This was the first game, all the players and Udinese staff understood that we are in a difficult situation and at times a different attitude is needed.
“When the time comes, we’ll be in a position to attack the opposition more and launch ourselves at them, but at this moment, especially after a break for international duty where we didn’t have many players available for training, it would not have been wise.”