Date: November 25, 2020
Time: 15:00 EST
Not a great draw coming up for Atalanta to get back on their feet after a drab weekend result against Spezia. Liverpool took no prisoners last time out against La Dea; and this time at Anfield, Atalanta will have to bring an A-grade attack they haven’t really demonstrated since Matchday 3 against Cagliari.
With Ajax getting a walk in the park against Midtjylland and a probable 3 points, staying on par with the Dutch will be a challenge, but garnering a point would be huge. It’ll take a full team effort and much more crispness and fluidity than Atalanta have shown recently to gain a crucial point, and give themselves a little breathing room before the final showdown against Ajax in December.
I only watched highlights of the first 20 minutes of the Spezia match, but it is unreal how much Gosens brings to the squad. His offensive firepower is close to being unmatched on the left in Serie A, and he’s always been my weapon of choice to exploit Liverpool’s defense. Now with Alexander-Arnold out of the lineup, Gosens will become even more crucial, as whoever is TAA’s replacement will not have nearly the same effectiveness going forward, allowing the German to play higher up the pitch and be much more involved in the offense than he would have with Alexander-Arnold in the game. I fully hope and expect Gasperini to have a lot of offense flowing down the left side and let Gosens do his thing.
To link up with Gosens, Duvan will need to stop his string of unfortunate luck in his last few games. He deserved at least 2 goals (maybe 1 if you’re conservative) against Liverpool last time out, and hit the post this past weekend against Spezia. He’s drooling for a goal, but has still looked good in other aspects of his striker duty, linking up players in the flank, winning balls in the air, and consistently changing between a target man and a goal scorer. I highly doubt Gollini can hold a cleansheet against Liverpool, so getting Zapata on the scorer’s sheet will be essential (not just in this game, but going forward for his confidence).
The final piece of the puzzle is the defensive strategy. Letting in 5 goals again will have all the pundits chirping about Gasp-ball, but fortunately a sound defensive structure looks to be taking place in Bergamo. de Roon coming back is huge for the double pivot and his partnership with Freuler, but perhaps more importantly is the emergence of Romero as the defensive rock Atalanta has been looking for. His presence at the back allows Toloi and Djimsiti to do their thing going forward, and be less worried about what will happen on a counter (de Roon’s cover for this again can’t be understated). Romero is due for a stinker every now and then, so a big defensive game against Liverpool’s immensely talented front line will be necessary to picking up any kind of points. He didn’t play last time against the Reds, and I think he probably has Gasperini’s trust to firmly establish his place in the middle (can’t let Jota destroy the defense like last game).
Klopp has been very vocal the last few weeks about the incredibly clogged fixture schedules English teams (and also European teams in general) have been facing. Balancing League matches, European football, and International matches has been a drag for a lot of clubs. Not even counting fatigue, the slew of consecutive games has ruled out Gomez, and potentially put Robertson in question, as well as Salah who recently tested positive for COVID (but should still be available). Klopp is always one to speak his mind, but it will be interesting to see if he does similar to what he’s been saying. Liverpool have pretty much wrapped up the first seed in Group D, so an additional 3 points may not be as crucial as resting players and getting players healthy and rested for what plans to be a huge December for stakes in the EPL. Granted Atalanta could use a laugher as well, but they are unfortunately not in the position to take any midweek game for granted given the dog fight they’ll have with Ajax to advance.
Regardless of what Klopp says or does, more than anything, the game just feels like survival. With 6 games upcoming over the next 3 weeks, including a crucial match against the ever unbreakable Verona on Saturday, Atalanta will be battle-tested like they’ve never been before, even last year in Champion’s League Group Stage. The top of the Serie A table is very crowded right now, and next month could do a lot to sort out the pecking order. Unfortunately having to play on two difficult fronts (unlike Sassuolo, Verona, and the Europa League squads) will prove challenging, but at least some key players are coming off injuries to help La Dea ride the ship. A midfield three of de Roon, Freuler, and Pessina looks much more promising than it did at the beginning of the season when it was just the first two plus half a Pasalic. Plus Romero improving weekly before our eyes, after his Napoli stinker, is very encouraging. Now if only we can get Hateboer and Ilicic on pace, it’ll just be a matter of time before the whole squad is uniformly clicking and the goals will start flowing again. For now, let’s see what we can take to Anfield, and hey who knows if the boys are hungry, and we get a few breaks that we didn’t get last game (like that glitchy cross-bar shot!), maybe points are available on the table….. But for now let’s just enjoy the biggest away match in Atalanta’s European history, and as always Forza La Dea!
