Atalanta will go for a seventh consecutive Serie A win on Saturday against AS Roma hoping to keep up with the Milan sides in the Scudetto race.
There have been the second-most first-half goals in the league in the Atalanta games this season and bookmaker 10Bet has the odds at 2.40 for over 1.5 first-half goals in the clash with Roma. The odds are at 5.50 for over 2.5 goals inside the first 45 minutes of action.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: December 17th, 2:30 P.M. (EST)
Atalanta had a pretty shaky start to the season, but things started to click after they lost to AC Milan at the start of October. They have bounced back from the defeat with a 10-game unbeaten run and Gian Piero Gasperini’s team is looking like a genuine title contender this season.
Their lackluster defensive play could turn out to be their downfall in the end but as long as they continue to score goals and entertain the crowd, Gasperini can be satisfied with how things are going.
Atalanta is getting goals from all over the place and 14 different players have already netted at least one league goal this season. It’s a nightmare of a matchup for Jose Mourinho who likes to focus on nullifying the opposition’s biggest threats. He might find a way to stop Duvan Zapata and Mario Pasalic here but somebody else can easily pop up with the winning goal.
Mourinho’s defensive schemes on Zapata might not work well either as the Colombian is due a goal after going three rounds without finding the back of the net. He was just on a five-game scoring streak in the league and the 30-year-old is having an amazing campaign with 12 goals across 20 games in all competitions.
Roma would love to have someone like Zapata in the squad. Mourinho’s men enjoyed a pretty prolific start to the season, but they haven’t had a consistent goalscorer on the team and their form has faded because of it. Lorenzo Pellegrini leads the pack with five Serie A goals however he won’t be available for the trip to Bergamo.
Tammy Abraham boasts 10 goals across all competitions, but he’s struck only four times in league action and the former Chelsea man needs to do better if Roma are going to climb into the top-four race. They are currently eight points off the pace, so even a win on Saturday won’t help them get near the Champions League spots.
Wins against Atalanta have actually become very rare for the Giallorossi. They last won a head-to-head clash in 2017 and the last 14 meetings have brought just two victories for Roma. Having lost five of their eight road outings this season, success for Mourinho’s men on Saturday seems very unlikely.
