After what was a much needed rest to redial and recoup some energy over the international break, the final slog begins against a foe that stifled Atalanta’s offensive rhythm last time out. After torrid rain postponed their earlier match, Atalanta and Udinese have faced each other as recently as mid January. In what was a completely frustrating affair for Atalantini, Udinese (smartly?) literally shithoused its way to a 1-1 draw after scoring an early goal due to horrible communication between Argentine duo Palomino and Romero. Besides an equalizer by Muriel right before half time, Atalanta had minimal time to get into an offensive flow, with Udinese resorting to milking every foul to the max, putting a severe strain on the quantity of minutes in which the ball was actually in play (less than 45% of the time to be exact). Atalanta will hopefully look to right this recent wrong, and ensure that mental mistakes don’t put them in a similar precarious situation having to claw back against a club completely content sitting back.
Coming back from International break, there are three extremely positive things to take into not only this match, but the next few matches. One: neither of the Colombian duo had to fight jet lag and insane intercontinental travel, so they should be fresh and rearing to go. Two: no one got hurt on International duty, and in fact Robin Gosesns was even fit enough to feature for Germany. Three: Ruslan Malinovksyi continued his excellent form, becoming the playmaker for Ukraine and putting together an excellent performance against the current best team in Europe, France.
Malinovskyi, I think and hope, is slowly but surely finding his niche in how to maximize his ability to be the best playmaker possible. Much more keen on dictating tempo and picking out teammates, he looks much more dangerous the less time he spends running around and dribbling. Combine that with an electric shot that teams must honor, he can be unstoppable on his day. Saturday will be another opportunity to showcase how he can do against a stingier defense, and I for one hope he can keep up his consistency that will not only solve our playmaking issues this year, but over the next few years as well.
Gosens is back, which is huge! But something deep down tells me that we may be in for a surprise in the defensive setup still. After the defensive tactical adventure that was the Verona match, does Gasperini try his look with a back four with both Maehle and Gosens acting as fullbacks? Especially with Romero and Palomino fully rested, a back four of Maehle-Romero-Palomino-Gosens is not really out of the question. The last ten matches of the year could be the perfect curveball for teams to prepare against, not knowing if Atalanta will come out with a back three or back four. Preparing for one tactic is hard enough, but two? Good luck! Plus, an additional midfielder can really clog up space for de Paul, and give us another attacking option that will be sorely needed against a defense that will barricade Musso like a king in chess. I’m not calling the back four now, but after the success against a good Verona side, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Saturday will be an enormous day for Top 4 implications. Napoli and Juventus have relatively easy wins coming against Crotone and Torino respectively (but never count out Torino). Plus Milan has a tricky match against a steady Sampdoria side that is within three points of surpassing Verona for 9th in the league. A lot could happen to jumble up the standings, but with Napoli’s all but guaranteed win – it puts so much more pressure on Atalanta to deliver a good result. Udinese can be a headache to face, but 7-2 still has to be vividly in both clubs minds for what can happen when Atalanta is firing on all cylinders. I’d gladly take a laugher to help fortify Top 4, but I’m not naive to think that Udinese won’t pull out every trick in the book to claw out a draw or an ugly one goal victory. If the same mentality comes out against Verona, I like our chances! Let’s hope the international break did everyone some good, both for the guys who got to rest, and for those players that could of jot rejuvenation hanging out with the boys they came up the ranks with. Let’s go get three points that we can most definitely earn, and as always Forza Dea!
