Udinese achieved safety again and this time they did it much more comfortably. It took a false start under Julio Velazquez and a brief fling with Davide Nicola before they went back to the tried and trusted Igor Tudor.
Velazquez was a shock and unpopular appointment among the Friulani faithful - having had no experience in Italian football - but the Spaniard showed early signs of being a welcome surprise with 8 points from his first 5 games in charge. Unfortunately for him, the honeymoon period didn't last and a dreadful run of just 1 point from 7 Serie A matches saw him given his marching orders with the club facing relegation.
Nicola was hired after performing miracles to keep Crotone in the top flight and despite a great debut victory over Roma, he couldn't sustain that level of performance from this squad and was sacked in March.
Tudor kept Udinese up at the end of last season and he managed to repeat the trick - winning half of the final 10 games of the season. This time the club have pinned him down to a contract for next season.
Rodrigo de Paul was able to flourish no matter who was in charge - bagging 9 goals and 8 assists to make him quite clearly Udinese's most influential player. He will certainly be wanted in the summer and the club would do very well to hold onto him.
