Marked for Jack Shaw
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Jul 2043
A knee injury of the worst kind for Massimo Peretti
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Udinese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom20 Jul 2043
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Udinese
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad20 Jul 2043
Jack Shaw: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Udinese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market20 Jul 2043
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Udinese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Jul 2043
Andrea Dorigo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market20 Jul 2043
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Udinese will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Jan 2043
Beaten 0‑4 by AS Roma, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad12 Jan 2043
A one-man rearguard from Jakub Mazuch
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings12 Jan 2043
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market12 Jan 2043
Add another name to the list: Giugliano have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Renato Graziani. The answer from Udinese has not changed — yet.
Squad12 Jan 2043
42 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad12 Jan 2043
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mauro Sanna and Udinese agree another 5 years.
Squad12 Jan 2043
The manager makes an example of Simone Palmieri
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom12 Jan 2043
Doors closed at Udinese
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Market12 Jan 2043
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Udinese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Aug 2042
A fracture rules Pietro Carrillo out for 31 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Udinese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad18 Aug 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market18 Aug 2042
Mantova come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Udinese did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market18 Aug 2042
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Udinese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad18 Aug 2042
The medical room confirms 33 days on the sidelines for Tommaso Ferrigno, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad18 Aug 2042
The manager makes an example of Simone Palmieri
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Jul 2042
A fracture rules Pietro Carrillo out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Udinese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Jul 2042
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Udinese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Achille Rizzo is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Jiří Pšenica was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market14 Jul 2042
Torino are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Udinese will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market14 Jul 2042
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jakub Mazuch’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Jun 2042
A fracture rules Pietro Carrillo out for 108 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Udinese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The scrutiny sharpens at Udinese
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Udinese is running low.
Squad2 Jun 2042
Iker Bravo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad2 Jun 2042
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gerónimo Miranda commits to Udinese for another 2 years.
Squad2 Jun 2042
An unwelcome headline for Jiří Pšenica
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Nikita Romanov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Udinese have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Market2 Jun 2042
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Udinese have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market2 Jun 2042
Udinese bring in an old head
Michele Tommasi is 37 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
$12.0M taken back off the Udinese table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.