And so to Alpine Lombardy, where a new opponent and a new Champions League format await.
One of the rewards of CL qualification is meant to be not having to play Thursday night football. However, we shall be playing football on Thursday night in hilly and historic Bergamo where Atalanta hosts us in its newly refurbished Gewiss Stadium for the first of our eight CL league phase games.
It does not look like it from the glitzy new wraparounds at either end, but the stadium dates to 1928. Then known as the Brumana, it was tiny, holding just 12,000 spectators. Today, following a three-phase expansion started just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it holds shy of 25,000. However, the pitch has remained 110m x 70m — barely larger than the 105m x 68m minimum specified by CL rules. Last weekend’s Serie A game against Fiorentina was Atalanta’s first home game with the renovation complete.
The club dates to 1907. It was founded by pupils of the city’s Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, an elite and demanding high school famed for grooming the future ruling class through a classical education. The scholars named their football team for the mythical Greek heroine, Atalanta, ‘whom no man could outrun except by cheating’. Always good to see a classical education not going to waste. The club’s crest depicts Atalanta’s profile to this day. It bears a striking resemblance to the logo of the German hair products company Wella. But I digress…
After merging with Bergamo’s other football club in 1920 and adopting its blue and back colours, the Nerazzuri were admitted to the predecessor of Serie B. They have yo-yoed between the top two tiers of Italian football, earning the unusual distinction of holding the record for promotions to Serie A. They are now in their 14th consecutive season in the top flight, their longest continuous stay.
Atalanta qualified for this season’s CL by finishing fourth in Serie A, with the backup of winning last season’s Europa League, beating the otherwise invincible Bayer Leverkusen in the final and the Scousers along the way. They are no mugs.
Gasperini
That was the club’s first European trophy and 66-year-old manager Gian Piero Gasperini’s first of any kind in a career dating back to 1994. Atalanta is his seventh club, but he has bloomed there into the most underrated coach in Europe. Since taking over in 2016, he has transformed Atalanta from regular relegation candidates into a club consistently challenging for Serie A’s European places.
Gasperini plays highly-fluid and high-risk football. He once said, ‘If you don’t win without danger, there’s no glory to your triumph’. Drawing his inspiration from the Dutch sides of his youth rather than the defensive-minded Italian ones, he favours setting up in a 3-4-2-1. Yet that is a mere starting point. Jose Mourinho once moaned that Gasperini was the most difficult coach he faced because Atalanta changed its formation so often in a game.
The uniqueness of Gasperini’s philosophy is his mix of high-intensity offensive and defensive pressing, relentless, persistent one-to-one marking and lots of quick, short passes and overloads to progress down both wings. Atalanta largely abandons the middle of the pitch. Both wing-backs play high and wide, as do two midfielders and the defensive line, with the centre-backs also ready to carry the ball into the half-spaces.
This fluidity lets Atalanta flood the box with players who get off lots of shots. They averaged 14 a game last season, the fourth highest in Serie A with more than five on target, second best in the league. Atalanta scores a lot — 72 goals last season, bettered only by champions Inter and runners-up Milan — but it also means they are vulnerable to opponents making hay in the space behind. Inter ripped them to shreds in a 4-0 pasting before the interlull.
Without the ball, Atalanta falls back into a compact 5-4-1, marks man-to-man and squeezes the already small pitch. Gasperini employs an unusual counter-pressing system that pushes attackers further and further away from the Atalanta goal one by one. If it holds (if a defensive system that essentially has no structure can be said to hold), it is highly effective; if the opposition breaks it, there is space aplenty to counter-attack.
Stuttering start
This season has seen a stuttering start to Atalanta’s league campaign, with two wins and two losses in the first four games. At the weekend, it twice came from behind to beat Fiorentina 3-2, not a good omen as home wins over the Tuscan side have a habit of triggering unbeaten streaks for Atalanta.
Against us, Marco Carnesecchi will likely be between the sticks. He played up through Italy’s national youth teams, but he is now 24 and has yet to get a senior cap. He replaced last season’s No. 1, Juan Musso, who was sold to Atletico Madrid.
Ahead of him, the back three will likely comprise the lanky Swedish international centre-back Isak Hien, Swiss-born Albanian international Berat Djimsiti and in the absence of injured skipper Rafael Toloi, Sead Kolasinac, formerly of this parish. However, the veteran DM, Marten de Roon, who has been pressed into emergency service in the back three of late to cover a raft of injuries to the club’s centre-backs, may stay there if Gasperini doesn’t relish the prospect of his mane of white hair being turned a further whiter shade of pale by the prospect of footraces between Kolasinac and the likes of Saka, Martinelli and Sterling.
If de Roon does not move back to his more accustomed midfield role, Mario Pasalic, the ex-Chelsea man who had more loans (six) than games for Chelsea (none), and Éderson, who is on the fringes of the Brazil squad, will provide the hustle and bustle needed by Gasperini’s midfield.
The Dutch international Teun Koopmeiners delivered that last season when he was also Atalanta’s joint-top scorer in Serie A. However, he was sold to Juventus for €54.7 million in the summer. Like Brighton, Atalanta tends to buy young and well and has a noted Academy but regularly loses its stars to the big-spending clubs. Rasmus Højlund was the money-spinning sale of the previous season.
Matteo Ruggeri, the tall Italy Under-21 left-back bought from Torino in the summer, and Raoul Bellanova, who won his first Italy cap earlier this year, will provide the width, progression and energy Gasperini demands from his wing-backs. Ruggeri is equally capable of playing in the back three, in which case the veteran former Italian international Davide Zappacosta would come in.
Gasperini’s preferred attacking midfield starters are the 23-year-old Belgian international Charles De Ketelaere, who turned last season’s loan from AC Milan into a permanent €22 million move in the summer, and Ademola Lookman, the London-born Nigerian international who will be familiar from his days with Charlton, Everton, Fulham and Leicester City. Gasperini has revitalised two men whose careers were going sideways before arriving at Atalanta.
Marco Brescianini, the Argentine-born centre forward picked up from Serie B’s Frosinone and who won his first Italy caps in the interlull, Lazar Samardžić, a German-born Serbian international and Nicolò Zaniolo, who is on loan from Galatasaray, which lent him to Aston Villa last season, are options from the bench.
In-form Mateo Retegui will be up top. The Argentina-born Italy international, who joined from Genoa in the summer, has four goals in four games, three with his head. He is filling in for last season’s top-scorer, Gianluca Scamacca, a prospect with whom we were once linked but who ended up at Moyes’s West Ham, where he didn’t take. He was rebuilding not only his club but also his international career before doing his ACL.
Former Everton centre-back Ben Godfrey will also be absent due to injury. Other superannuated Premier League players in Atalanta’s squad include former Wolves keeper Rui Patricio, who arrived in the summer from Roma, and Juan Cuadrado, once of Chelsea.
The Arsenal
Arteta will want a winning start to the CL league phase. He rarely makes wholesale changes in team selection and I suspect he will only tweak in order to execute a specific game plan for this opponent. I write before knowing the latest injury news, but the word is that Saka is available but Big Gabi is not. Thus:
Raya
White — Saliba — Calafiori —Timber
Partey — Rice — Havertz
Saka — Jesus — Sterling
If Sterling gets on, it would make him the first player to feature in the Champions League with four different English sides.
This will be a challenging and unusual game, turning on who wins the tactical battle between our young master and their old apprentice, so to speak. A 2-0 win would be a good evening’s sorcery for Artera, especially if he can rest legs early ahead of Sunday’s trip to Manchester.
Enjoy the game ‘holics, near and far.
C100 – Ned,
Before I read the preview, this is in answer to C100’s question at the end of the last bar –
The radio report I heard said Arteta mentioned “significant ankle ligament damage”
If we assume that to mean a grade 2 tear and possibly more than one ligament in a complicated joint like an ankle, we are probably looking at 8 weeks to fitness. Of course, we don’t know what significant means here.
A grade 3 tear / rupture could mean up to 12 weeks or surgery, depending on which ligament(s) we’re talking about.
So all a bit woolly but in any event not great news.
A superb and incredibly informative preview detailing a team of whom I knew nothing other than their city of origin until I read this excellent piece. I would rest more of our first XI than you propose with Zinny or Skelly at LB as I think Timber will benefit from a rest before C115y and I would start Nwaneri for Havertz and Martinelli for Saka. However MA8 is certainly in your camp and will make few changes. It’s certainly time to start Sterling. While 2-0 would be excellent, I feel a good ol’ 1-0 to the Arsenal coming on.
Pity about the news on Øde but given the footage of the challenge it was to be expected. An opportunity for Nwaneri to step up and show his chops. This is a good game to start.
Thanks Ned for your typically informative and well written preview. There’s a lot we Arsenal fans don’t (or didn’t) know about Atalanta but they are a very tough opponent that we are facing at one of the most challenging moments for our side so a draw in these circumstances would be a very commendable result. If I were going I would make sure to enjoy my pasta tonight (Wednesday). Cheers!
Inter fans are also enjoying their pasta tonight after toothless C115y 0 Inter 0.
Thanks Ned – the usual thorough and interesting history lesson on a club I honestly knew nothing about.
The team selection will be tricky ahead of the cheats on Sunday with so little turn round time. Instinctively I would like to see a bit more rotation but I think your selection will be very close for the reasons you’ve stated.
I could see Martinelli getting a good chunk of the game as his pace could be telling against Atalanta’s “formation” as you’ve described it.
Thanks Ned, great stuff. As you say a good test as they seem a well-drilled bunch and will no doubt be roared on by their fans in what is going to be a big night for them – CL football in their shiny, spruced-up home stadium. We will need to silence the crowd with a solid start and snatch a goal or two along the way. It would be perfect if we could get a 2-0 lead and give some players the last 15-20 minutes off.
Like Bath I would start Nwaneri. I’d also rest Partey or Jorginho depending on who he plans to start on Sunday. I also wouldn’t be overplaying the returning Timber; Zinny or Kiwior would be fine for this one.
Thanks Ned, top top notch as usual,
A tricky opener but one that needs to be won, whatever the team selection.
2-0 would be a happy start.
UTA.
A wonderfully detailed introduction to tonight’s opponents, Ned. My enthusiasm for the game hasn’t been heightened by the possible prospect of Kolasinac’s silky skills being on display.
Like most, I’d like to see a good measure of rotation before Sunday’s game. However, I think MA8 will be focused on an away win and will pick his strongest eleven to ensure that is achieved. If it is, I’ll have no complaints.
From his presser Mikel doesn’t seem of a mind to rotate.
Thanks, all, for the kind remarks.
Youngsters Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, Jack Porter, Jimi Gower and Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand have all travelled to Bergamo with the first team. I don’t think Arteta will start any of them, especially given what he said about playing his strongest team, but Nwaneri could get 15 minutes and Lewis-Skelly a few, too. Nwaneri, in particular, is going to get a measured introduction to the first team so he is properly seasoned. I think Arteta will have taken on the lessons from Charlie Patino. Plus the notion that you can throw in Nwaneri — or anyone else — to be a one-for-one replacement for MØ8 is flat wrong.
OM@6: Zinny is still off-games.
If anyone would like a preview of Atalanta and the Gewiss Stadium, here are the highlights of last weekend’s game against Fiorentina:
Thank you for the excellent and typically informative preview Ned. Our away European record has been mixed under Arteta which I think is a combination of him and his coaching team learning more about the differing tactical approaches of continental football as well as the inexperience of our young squad.
This would have been a tough game even if Ødegaard played, and in his absence we will need a bit more technical quality on the ball than that was on dismay in last Sunday’s NLD. At the same time, I don’t think the enterprising Atalanta forwards have ever met quite the combination of steel-and-silk of White-Saliba-Gabriel.
I like your team. But maybe Calafiori starts in place of Timber, with Jurien requiring to be managed after his return and Calafiori being the only one with some experience of this ground?
I know Mikel won’t do it, but I would rather have Saka taking a break, Sterling on the right with Martinelli keeping his place on the left. The two Gabis really work well together and Jesus always bring out the best of the younger Brazilian. Also, even though Martinelli is going through a lean patch in terms of the end product this will be the kind of defense with their adventurous wingbacks that he will love running at.
Any win will do, but I feel a composed 2-0 may very well be likely in favor of Mikel’s merry men.
Come on Arsenal!
Ned
I wish you wouldn’t skimp on preparation! Seriously you are an inspiration to us all. A marvellous preview . As I write the team news has just come up and he has made two changes . Jesus does well in Europe and Rice had to come back.
I think we will see Calafiori and Sterling at some stage .
I’m chairing a Food Bank meeting tonight ( with very few footie fans in the room. I think we may achieve a 1-1 draw
Minimal change as expected. I can’t see Timber and Partey being asked to play 90 minutes again given the challenge on Sunday and Saka and Martinelli could do with 20 minutes off if we aren’t chasing the game.
COYRRR’s
Raya!!!!
So quick on the follow-up save, unbelievable.
Best keeper since Seaman.
Take the point and move on I guess.
Atalanta were clearly a difficult team to play against with their man for man press all over the pitch. Without doubt that was a good point especially once we gave away a pen because of Partey’s slow reactions. That team will cause others a lot of problems.
Time for inflight massages, ice packs and a snooze and to start thinking about C115y.
An away point in Europe against a top team is never a bad result.
I can’t say that we deserved to win that game, but we didn’t deserve to lose it, and it is important that we didn’t, even if we were indebted to Raya’s amazing double save for our point. Arteta devised a game plan to nullify Gasperini’s tactics, and, by and large, it worked. We weren’t caught like deer in the headlights as Bayer Leverkusen were in the Europa League Final. However, we weren’t on the front foot much. It is hard to escape the thought that Arteta, bereft of Ødegaard, is focused on getting through the eight days from the NLD to City away without getting beaten. And that’s fine. I suspect most in the bar would happily take a point on Sunday, and be over the blue moon with all three. But after that, and with MØ8 likely to be missing for weeks, Arteta will surely be looking to do something different than channelling his inner George Graham.
Well summed up Ned. That was a tough game and we deserved our point . A point on Sunday will be fine. They will be losing 40 plus points soon anyway .
Raya’s save is up there with the best save ever from an Arsenal keeper but we must also praise the defence again. Quite immaculate.
Martinelli is starting to worry me
TTG@21: Martinelli needs some goals and assists to boost his confidence. His off-the-ball work remains top-rate. Three years of Arteta drilling it into him and Saka has made both of them as key to our defending as our attacking. It was noticeable how Sterling hasn’t got that nailed yet. He seemed to know he had to do it, but didn’t seem to know what it was he had to do.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to M. Clement Turpin and his team, who I thought were exemplary in officiating the game. It would be nice to think that the PGMOL were taking notes, assuming levels of literacy allowed that.
I know he is playing behind a defence that has only gotten better, but this is a remarkable stat:
Raya has conceded 32 goals in 46 games for Arsenal – compared to the 99 Ramsdale let in in 89 games.
I would like the monks to take a closer look at the keeper numbers. I took a quick look at matches played versus saves in the league. Raya has 58 saves in 36 matches whereas Ramsdale had 152 saves in 78 matches. If we scale Raya’s stats to 78 matches, then he would have made roughly 126 saves. So Ramsdale faced more shots on goal, and would expect to concede more goals.
Both are top notch keeps and Raya fits better with Arteta’s vision, and the saves today were outstanding.
Yep, two spot on comments there, Ned.
This is a very difficult period with our two summer signings having been injured and just working their way back, Timber the same and Martinelli with no regular partner out on the left wing. When he does get into shooting g positions it looks like he’s rushing to try to impress – he also has Trossard breathing down his neck for his place on the team. An extra breath, half a second to compose himself – we all know the talent is there. In the meantime his defensive work has been terrific.
I spent yesterday afternoon cutting back a tall hedge. I hope that the players’ muscles are considerably less sore than mine this morning!
An interesting demonstration of the fallibility of PGMOL’s officials and the organisation’s determination to stand by the wrong decision despite the evidence:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/09/19/steve-cooper-accuses-pgmol-false-images-var-cover-up-var/
I must observe that it was such a pleasure to watch a well refereed game where the referee was not attempting to make himself the most important person on the field despite how tedious the game was for long periods. Well done the Leo look-alike.
>>>>>>>