Last season, Aston Villa made it to the UEFA Conference League semi-finals, where they were knocked out by eventual winners Olympiacos.
Aston Villa started the European competition with a 3-2 defeat against Legia Warsaw in September 2023. The Villans were able to secure a 2-1 win over the Polish side at Villa Park later that year.
Kosta Runjaić was in charge at Legia and his tactics against Aston Villa left Udinese impressed.
This has been revealed by the Serie A side’s sporting director, Gianluca Nani, during a chat with DAZN. His comments are relayed by Gianluca Di Marzio.
Udinese appointed the 53-year-old as their manager in the summer and have enjoyed a good start under his orders. They are currently third in the table, level on points with second placed Napoli and a point behind leaders Torino.
The Italian club had an opportunity to take the top spot, but suffered a 3-0 defeat to AS Roma on Sunday.
Prior to this tie, DAZN asked Nani to give an insight on how they ended up appointing the Austrian as their new manager. This is when he mentions Aston Villa.
“When we went after him it was because we were convinced, we were making that type of choice, then being first in the standings is not what we asked of him. However, we know that our objective is to reach safety as soon as possible, before last season,” he said.
“We want to play a slightly more offensive type of football and close with some technical aspects of the past.
“Just as we scout players, we also do it with coaches. In a match that his team played against Aston Villa he gave a good performance, with very narrow, compact departments. From there we started to follow him and then we signed him.”
