As the summer rolls along with minimal moves coming across the Twitter timeline, its natural that the first reaction is, “what’s going on?” Atalantini have gotten spoiled with five or six moves per summer the last few seasons, but without European football to worry about next season, its a sobering reminder that there is less need for depth and thus subsequent transfer moves to find that depth. Even signing Ederson seems like a move for the future, as Atalanta was already having difficulty finding playing time for Marten de Roon, Remo Freuler, and Teun Koopmeiners.
But now with only thirty eight games on the docket, rather than finding enough players to satisfy the brutal calendar, Atalanta may have to pull off the opposite: finding enough minutes to satisfy the quality of its players. Nowhere is this more of a concern than centerback. With Merih Demiral coming back for at least a second season with La Dea, it gives Atalanta five (and a half) legitimate centerback options to fill three positions.
Not counting the Coppa Italia last year, Atalanta played an astounding 50 matches across Serie A, Champion’s League, and Europa League. 50 matches equate to 49,500 minutes to fill across 11 positions, a figure substantially higher than the 37,620 field minutes that Gian Piero Gasperini must address in the upcoming season. With 24% less minutes to play this year – it is likely a welcome relief for a squad that looked overworked in the second half (of course key injuries helped to add to the anguish). However, there is still good quality that may get left on the wrong side looking in, purely because Atalanta will not have to play an extra 12 matches this year.
So the minutes crunch is on, and inside Gasperini’s tried-and-true defensive back three, someone’s minutes will be dropped. It is safe to assume that the starting back three will be Rafael Toloi – Merih Demiral – Jose Luis Palomino. Giorgio Scalvini should be the first rotation option off the bench, who can likely fill a hybrid role depending on who’s absent. It then leaves Berat Djimsiti out in the cold, and with no midweek games to clog up the schedule, it may not just be cold for the Albanian, but ice cold.
Across 50 matches last year, Toloi, Demiral, Palomino, Scalvini, and Djimsiti played a total of 11,954 minutes. Some of Scalvini’s minutes were at midfield, but it’s minimal for this exercise. That nearly 12,000 minutes played is already 1,700 minutes more than the total minutes needed from centerbacks this upcoming season (which equates to like six total matches of football). Regardless someone’s minutes have to get cut. Some reduction of minutes will happen naturally with Toloi’s recent injury history, and Demiral always a risk given his ACL tear. But at the end of the day, you have to get really creative to nicely divvy up the minutes between all five centerback options (not even taking into account that Caleb Okoli and Matteo Ruggeri could be in the mix for minutes too).
Let’s Look at Some Scenarios
Let’s assume health is good, players may miss a game or two for knocks and suspensions, but at the end of the day – the backline has a fortunate health year. Assuming the top three plays 75% of the matches, and Scalvini rightfully doubles his Serie A minutes, it leaves Djimsiti or others with only 650 minutes to play….
Next, let’s assume everyone has the same injury fortune next year. Toloi misses about 15 matches as a result, and Demiral and Palomino have clean bills of health (I even took Palomino’s minutes down). Scalvini stays the same at half the minutes, and it still leaves Djimisiti with less than 700 minutes to play.
Now where things start to get interesting is if someone on Atalanta suffers a major injury. In this example, Toloi goes down, and then naturally everyone’s minutes go up to fill the void. As a result, Djimisti should be able to see the pitch for about 40% of the minutes.
Similarly if all the starters suffer nagging injuries all season, it leaves room for Djimsiti to increase his playing time. And of course the nuclear option….
Two serious injuries likely not only require Djimsiti to fill in the void, but someone else (perhaps Marten de Roon again supplanting at centerback).
What Does This All Mean?
Honestly its probably a surprise to no one that Djimsiti’s minutes increase when there’s an injury to one of Toloi, Demiral, or Palomino. The next question then becomes, does Atalanta build its team assuming that there would be significant injuries that need to be planned against. Given Toloi’s recent troubles and Atalanta’s experience with injuries last year, it makes complete sense to prep against another injury windfall.
The next questions then becomes, does Atalanta prefer Caleb Okoli to Berat Djimsiti? This is tougher to answer. If scenario 3 or 4 (the most likely ones) come to fruition 1,300-1,500 minutes almost feels like too little to justify giving them to Djimsiti and a perfect amount of minutes for Okoli to grow into the league. Interestingly in a counter-intuitive opposite manner, I’d prefer to give Djimsiti the minutes in scenario 1 or 2 rather than have Okoli waste away on the bench.
Its a difficult decision for the squad to make. Djimsiti has been a dependable and strong member of the recent Atalanta core, but with Giorgio Scalvini waiting in the wings, and potentially Okoli too, there’s no need to hold them back to give minutes to Djimsiti.
Now Monza has called in about the Albanian. If Silvio Berlusconi’s contingency continues its spending spree and wants to offer Atalanta 12-16M euros for Djimsiti, Atalanta would seriously have to entertain that offer. Caleb Okoli, and Marten de Roon could offset the reduced minutes Djimsiti will already get (and that’s even without increasing Scalvini’s minutes into the mid-to-upper two thousands). As Atalanta’s fifth centerback choice, cashing in for double digit euros almost feels compulsory (especially given that he came to Atalanta on a free transfer).
Its a shame that thoughts like this are lurking into the mind, as you never want to see loyal squad members leave for more playing time elsewhere. But its the nature of the beast. No European football means less minutes to allocate to a squad, and Atalanta isn’t in a financial position to hold onto a player with the hopes that European football comes back around in two years. Let’s keep monitoring this one, as I feel we haven’t heard the end of it…
