Di Natale feted after Udinese success

Udinese Calcio's Giovanni Pasquale praised his captain Antonio Di Natale for his inspirational performance as they fought back to claim a 3-2 UEFA Europa League victory against Liverpool FC at Anfield. Pasquale, who scored the winning goal on the night, is hoping the win will lead to a strong challenge in Group A, but Liverpool's Joe Allen, Jack Robinson and Stewart Downing were left deflated.

Giovanni Pasquale, Udinese defender
Di Natale is our captain. He is the one who carries us on his shoulders and that is what he did today. He played a great match and we thank him for that. His goal was very important to us and helped us to win in such a great stadium. I was very proud of my goal because it meant that we won the match, which is a big result in the history of our club. It is an important win for us in the group too and we will look to improve in the next match. We have a good squad and we're getting better and better.

Pablo Armero, Udinese defender
Di Natale is a wonderful player, he showed he can score at any time. He's a goal poacher. I'm very happy to play alongside him. We are very proud to have beaten a team like Liverpool on their home ground. It was never going to be easy at Anfield – a historic club like this, with Steven Gerrard and the fans. In the first half, I think we allowed them to play too much with the ball. We are very lucky with our support and all the fans who came were wonderful. We appreciate their backing and this wonderful win is for them.

Joe Allen, Liverpool midfielder
It's very frustrating for us having been 1-0 up at home and it's a strange feeling to come off the field with nothing. We're all disappointed with the result. Di Natale was a player we were warned of – he's been massive for them in the last decade and you can see why. He's got an instinct to score goals and unfortunately for us that is what he did tonight. The atmosphere was incredible. It's a shame we squandered our one-goal lead and I'm disappointed for the fans we couldn't give them a victory to go home smiling.

Jack Robinson, Liverpool defender
I think we played well but we just couldn't get that final goal. We just came out a bit sloppy for the second half. We tried to get going again but couldn't get the goals back. We're disappointed with the result and need to improve going into the next game. The team is getting better and better but we're disappointed we couldn't get our first clean sheet – it's something we're working on. It was a tough game. We knew they'd come here and have a good game. The experience playing against Di Natale can only benefit me.

Stewart Downing, Liverpool midfielder
We controlled the game for long periods and if we'd played the way we did in the first half, we'd have won and kept a clean sheet. There were some positives with our passing and I thought our movement was better. We dominate a lot of games but miss a lot of chances. Concentration let us down in defence, and our defending wasn't good enough. Sloppy on our part to concede and sloppy in the last third is where it went wrong.