Atalanta returns to play in Bergamo after two months, but hasn’t even won in their stadium since 15 October. Will Muriel see you again against Salernitana?
Back home, back to the past? Not the newer one, just in case. But the one where the home stadium was a fort for Atalanta: not a place that became taboo – last year – and this year a limbo space, where Gasperini’s team hasn’t played since 13 November (Inter) and hasn’t won from 15 October (Sassuolo). But the coach doesn’t want it to become an obsession: “We just have to think that tomorrow we have a chance to win again at home, but also that it’s never easy. Salernitana has grown compared to last season, it will be a difficult match and it would It’s serious thinking already about Thursday, therefore about the Italian Cup. Or about Juve, which is very far away: for this reason I won’t make calculations on the cautioned players (De Roon, Koopmeiners and Demiral), maybe I will be able to think about it while the match is in progress. reverse the trend even away from home: sometimes certain calculations also depend on the calendar, in any case 31 points are a lot, and we can improve even more. whether you want to see the glass half empty or half full”. For this reason, Gasperini said on Monday that we can begin to look at the standings: “Because we are getting closer to the start of the second round, therefore it is more significant and also more truthful. We have the fifth best defense in the championship and the sixth attack, in fact for now we oscillate between fifth and sixth place: with a good margin of advantage over those behind us and those in front who are relatively close. We are in good company”.
SIGNS OF GROWTH
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It’s an Atalanta in progress, also in terms of game philosophy: “We make more use of forward throws, as an alternative to the fact that the opponents press higher than in the past: it’s also the easiest game, but only sometimes it’s done with a good level of quality, that’s why you have to be careful not to abuse it.Maybe we even have a little less intensity than we used to and it’s no coincidence that guys like Hojlund and Ruggeri are sometimes preferred precisely because of their energy. I hope that the others too can reach the same level, in the meantime we have found other balances that allow us to always stay in the game and almost always do even a little more than our opponents, even without dominating like in the past”. The novelty of the day is the possible availability of Muriel: “she tried this morning and the test went well, if she’s fine in today’s training, she’ll be available: if she overcomes the pain, she doesn’t have any relapse problems” . If so, the Colombian too could be one of the forwards capable of changing the game in the running, as well as Boga: “He’s a type of resource that has been very important in the past, as Lucho himself demonstrates. Football with five substitutions is changed, you can play in 16. And the fact that he has exploited this factor in the last two games, after losing it for a while, is an excellent sign. Boga has precise characteristics, he fits better as a winger. But in Bologna , beyond a fundamental play for the second goal, it was more or less at the same level as the other games. I hope he can become more and more concrete in finding these winning ideas”.
January 14, 2023 (change January 14, 2023 | 3:05 pm)
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