Date: May 2, 2021
Time: 15:00 CET
FiveThirtyEight Predictions:
Atalanta Victory – 59%
Sassuolo Victory – 20%
Draw – 21%
Sunday is hopefully the day that Serie A begins to chisel away at the glut of teams duking it out for the top spots in the league. With Atalanta on top of the four clubs between 66 and 68 points, every Atalantini’s hope is that totem pole becomes a bit taller, and that of course La Dea get to stay on top. Unfortunately, Atalanta has to go up against one of the most in form teams in Serie A, Sassuolo. Fortunately, Atalanta have not dropped points to Sassuolo since 2017, and have won their recent four matches against de Zerbi’s boys by a combined score of 16-4. So at this impasse, who comes out on top? It’s not like Atalanta has been bad in their own right, dropping points only once since its loss to Inter nearly two months ago. You have to think La Dea are the kryptonite to de Zerbi’s Italian hipster club, and Sunday would be one of the worst opportunities to reverse the recent trend of fixture fortune.
De Zerbi really only knows one thing; playing out of the back – and for the most part it works. With the excellent Manuel Locatelli dictating tempo from the midfield, Sassuolo can really whip the ball around the pitch against clubs that sit back and give players sufficient time to sit on the ball. However, Sassuolo tends to run into problems with Atalanta’s insane press – forcing players into quicker decisions, subsequent mistakes, and often goals. You can’t deny 16 goals in the last four matches, and in the manner Atalanta has been peppering opposition’s goals with shots recently, it may be a long day at the office for Consigli. Scoring five goals against Bologna is quite encouraging that the Roma match was not a sign of a goal scoring drought to come, and with nearly attacking minded player sniffing the goal against the Rossoblu, confidence should be high in the squad to continue a full-fledged attack.
As effective as Atalanta can be on offense, they cannot deny the quality that Sassuolo have up front to do damage of its own. Berardi is a mini-Ilicic, Boga can embarrass you when in form, and even their back-up striker in Raspadori is capable of putting up a neat and tidy brace against Italy’s top clubs. Basically, it will not be an easy game. 55 goals converted does not really do justice to the offense Sassuolo can bring when on, so it will really be up to the midfield and defense to shut down Sassuolo before they can get up and running. Having Gosens’ contributions should be huge, as must most of the offense will run through Berardi – and he is physical enough to throw the talismanic lefty into a fit of disarray. Elsewhere on the pitch, Remo will have another huge task in ensuring that Locatelli is not able to spur dangerous counters. I thought he and de Roon held de Paul well in check against Udinese, and the request will be similar for the double pivot on Sunday. Stop these two guys early, and Atalanta should be fine – its a tough ask, but Atalanta’s defense has been solid enough that they should hopefully frustrate a team that relies on error free passing. Time to get our pressing shoes on!
A lot hangs on this game, and I can envision Sassuolo is out for blood. Constantly being coined a mini-Atalanta is probably both annoying and infuriating. Especially when the team that you’re supposedly emulating consistently drops four plus goals on you each match. I expect a dog fight, and but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a blowout. If Atalanta scores early the match could be a done and dusted match before half time, but I’m not counting on that. I’d love another laugher like Bologna, but Sassuolo can sneakily pass Roma with a string of good results and will come out hungry in their last five matches. They still have a lot to play for if they want to get into the Conference League next season and show off on the (smaller) International stage. But more importantly for us, three points means we at least hold serve with our nearest rivals – none of which have real challenging matchups this weekend (perhaps Cagliari vs. Napoli is the best place to find a droppage of points). I’m cautiously confident, but I’ll feel much better if we can hit the net within 20 minutes. Let’s go make that a reality!!! As always Forza Dea!
