Udinese Match Date: January 20, 2021
Udinese Match Time: 15:00 CET
So this week I’m going through my first move in multiple years, and I forgot how annoying moving is. Piles of boxes, cutting meters of bubble wrap, and trying to make creative meals to use up the random ingredients in the refrigerator, it’s never fun. In fact, it’s a drain, and it made more sense to just do a combo article this week for Sunday’s drab performance, and the makeup game on Wednesday. But what moving made me realize – and not to toot my own horn – that myself (and my wife!) have strong solid yeoman like work rates. Probably about a 15-16 out of 20 on the Football Manager scale. As the NFL likes to praise guys with a good motor who aren’t freak athletes, but go all out every play, I love myself a player – or a mover! – with a admirably high work rate. Even if the player doesn’t possess the most supreme technical ability, an intelligent high work rate player can still do his thing, disrupting opponents attacks, cutting off passing lanes, and just being a general nuisance without resorting to dangerous fouls; it can often go overlooked.
Now I don’t want to assume that a high work rate player is just bereft of playmaking ability – plenty of Atalanta players highlight the best of both worlds, which makes them successful. However, it does demonstrate the importance of heavy intensity in Atalanta’s midfield. The emergence of Pessina in the Papu role has become supremely important to Atalanta January success, and his work rate is a strong factor for Atalanta’s new scheme to click.
Pessina’s presence against Genoa was sorely missed. Part of it could’ve been Malinovskyi’s continual mercurial play – this time on the low end of the spectrum – but Pessina really is the engine in the middle of the pitch that has propelled Atalanta since the Papu departure. Against Genoa so much pressure was applied to Ilicic, he had minimal space to work his magic. Given that Ilicic and Malinovskyi want to do similar things, the Pessina outlet either to recycle possession or move into an unpredictable channel could’ve opened up the game for Ilicic. This opens up a few cans of short-term worms, like do we start Pessina Wednesday and Saturday, can/should we run him dogged until Pasalic comes back (who I think can play the Pessina role well too), plus some long-term cans of worms like do we ship out Malinosvkyi given his redundancy in the offense, and how does Miranchuk fit into plans?
There’s obviously not enough time to dissect all these properly here, but long story short Pessina has grabbed his midfield position by the horns and is essential for the Milan game – and perhaps the Udinese game given the importance of gaining 3 points.
Going into last Sunday, earning 4 points from Genoa and Udinese was vital, while earning 6 would’ve been a cherry on top. Now with 1 point earned Sunday, grabbing 3 points in Udine is necessary – which may render a Pessina start. Udinese continue to live in midtable purgatory, and Rodrigo de Paul may be the only thing keeping them out of the relegation zone right now. De Paul’s abilities are so remarkable that it may be more vital for Romero to shadow and man-mark his fellow countryman rather than Lasagna. But then again, Lasagna’s pace is such a pain – even if his finishing is quite poor right now – that it put’s La Dea’s back three in a precarious situation on how to handle two unique playmakers. Regardless someone needs to always be shadowing de Paul, whether it be Romero, Toloi, de Roon, or Freuler, or some sort of rotation. Pulling up the CBs to cover a midfielder may be a stretch, but since de Paul will see so much of the ball, having Romero cover and a midfielder overlap for defensive protection may work. I’m very interested to see how Gasperini handles this, as I envision it will be the difference from Atalanta winning all 3 points versus scratching their heads wondering how they ended up with 1 or 0 points.
Offensively coming off a 0-0 draw should be enough firepower for Atalanta to go full gas from the start and try to gain an advantage right from the start. With Milan off in the distance, it may also be the perfect chance to give Ilicic a rest, and see what either Malinovskyi or Miranchuk can do from the right side. Both have the quality to imitate Ilicic’s contribution on their day, we just haven’t seen the consistency from them, and it’s a coin toss and which version you’re gonna get. Personally I’d want to see a Miranchuk start from the get go, with a clear set of instructions on how he needs to lead the attack. He looked a bit lost and wasn’t assertive when he came off the bench against Genoa, and perhaps going into the match with a start and a clear offensive gameplan could be beneficial for him – I imagine trying to read a game, and receive instructions off the bench in your non-native language 5 months living in a brand new country is not the easiest thing in the world, and a start may assuage this predicament a bit.
With a huge Milan game coming up this weekend, its important not to lose site of the game in hand that can assist La Dea climb up the ranks. Even with the away travel to Udine, Atalanta have a prime spot to climb into the top 4 and hopefully the Genoa draw is motivation needed to drive the offense forward and continue with their good form. Midweek games aren’t fun when you’re one of the four out of twenty teams actually playing on Wednesday, but we’re used to this. Champion’s League has been great prep to playing an exhausting schedule, and let’s just keep the motor going. As always, Forza La Dea!
