Isla not resting on laurels

Udinese defender Mauricio Isla feels his side still have a lot to improve on despite sitting second in Serie A.

The Stadio Friuli outfit could not break down a stubborn Cagliari side on Sunday, with the 0-0 result meaning Udinese’s unbeaten start to the season continued.

Isla praised the side’s defence, which has conceded just one goal in four Serie A fixtures, but believes that Udinese’s attacking play needs to improve if they are to repeat last season’s fourth-placed finish.

“We’ve played a lot and won some quite difficult matches, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us,” Isla said.

“We know it’s important to win, but we’re still looking for our best style of football. It was quite a tough match, it isn’t easy to win in Cagliari. They are strong and as the head coach (Francesco Guidolin) said, we have a lot of work to do.”

“I think we’re doing a good job in defence, but we need to attack as we did last year. We were an offensive team last year. We need more time for that, we must give (Gabriel) Torje more time to adapt and understand our style.”

Torje was a summer arrival from Dinamo Bucharest, but the Romanian has failed to score so far this season.

Udinese travel to Scotland on Thursday for a Europa League clash against Celtic, and Isla is expecting a stern test.

“I think being in a close group is the most important thing, as I said before we have a lack of options in attack, but it’s important to work together as a group, as we did against Cagliari,” he said.

“It will be a very tough match, but for me the game against Atletico Madrid will be more difficult.”

“Saying that, Thursday’s match against Celtic will be difficult as well.”