Runjaic shields his position after Udinese's sixth straight defeat
Kosta Runjaic deflected questions about his future after Udinese fell to Milan at the Stadio Friuli, their sixth consecutive Serie A loss, pointing instead to an injury-hit squad still finding its feet.
Udinese's losing run reached six Serie A matches on Saturday, beaten at home by AC Milan, and manager Kosta Runjaic used the post-match press conference to push back on any talk of his own position rather than dwell on the result itself.
The damage was done inside six minutes. Christian Pulisic timed a run to beat the offside trap from a Luka Modric free kick, exploiting a high defensive line that simply failed to step in unison. It was the kind of set-piece routine that punishes a back line still searching for cohesion, and Udinese never fully recovered from conceding so early.
Milan should have added to the lead soon after. Maduka Okoye parried an Ardon Jashari strike straight into the path of Omari Hutchinson, who could not miss from the rebound, while the goalkeeper later clawed a Goncalo Ramos effort onto the crossbar to keep the scoreline respectable. Those two saves were arguably the difference between a routine defeat and a heavier one.
Runjaic avoids the future question
Asked by DAZN Italia whether the club hierarchy had made any contact with him about his position, Runjaic was direct in declining to engage with the subject straight after the final whistle, saying it was not the moment to discuss it. He said the squad was disappointed, himself included, but argued that what he saw on the pitch was a team that competed with energy and fought until the end, describing them as "full of life" despite conceding what he called an easy goal early on.
That early concession, in his reading, was the pivotal moment of the match. He suggested it was difficult to claw back momentum once Milan had the lead to defend, because an experienced side like Milan knows how to manage a game from the front, controlling tempo and limiting the space Udinese could find in transition.
A squad weakened before kick-off
Runjaic pointed to a run of injuries as a significant factor behind the club's recent struggles, saying results have gone the wrong way as a consequence and that the situation has not been easy to manage. He maintained that Udinese's football had not been poor before their defeat to Lecce, and that even against Milan he saw signs of progress in how the team tried to work its way out of trouble.
He also resisted comparisons with Udinese's form from the previous campaign, noting that this season had actually started reasonably well up to the match against Lazio before results turned. His phrase for the subsequent slide was blunt: things simply went wrong, and the group now needs unity to turn results around in the next fixture.
Where this leaves Udinese in the table
The defeat leaves Udinese with four points from eight games, level with Fiorentina and Parma and only a single point above bottom-placed Venezia. That places them firmly in the relegation zone heading into the next round of fixtures, with the early-season injury problems Runjaic described compounding the pressure already building from six straight losses.
Runjaic framed the situation as one football occasionally forces on a team: defeats have to be accepted, he said, because nothing can be changed about results after the fact, and nobody connected with the club is happy with where things stand. He added that maintaining fair play matters to him as a coach, calling it important that he set the right example in that regard regardless of results.
He singled out a few bright spots from the Milan game, mentioning Keinan Davis as someone who created moments for Udinese, while conceding that the team lacked the luck and the final quality to turn those moments into something tangible. Milan, by contrast, did what was required to see the match out.
With the squad still working through its injury list and the table offering no room for further slippage, Udinese's next fixture carries obvious weight. Runjaic's message after a sixth straight defeat was that the group has the material to recover, provided it can translate the application he praised into points before the gap to safety widens further.