Atalanta thanked their squad depth for the hard-fought victory over Monza, as Lazar Samardzic and Davide Zappacosta delivered goals off the bench.
La Dea were on spectacular Serie A form, winning three on the bounce with 13 goals scored and two conceded, despite missing Marco Brescianini, Giorgio Scalvini and Gianluca Scamacca. Monza were unbeaten in three, with Warren Bondo suspended, Samuele Birindelli, Stefano Sensi, Andrea Petagna, Roberto Gagliardini and Alessio Cragno injured.
See how it unfolded on the Liveblog.
Despite dominating possession in the first half, Atalanta struggled to find a breakthrough with Danilo D’Ambrosio twice getting his head to the cross before Mateo Retegui, while Marten de Roon and Ademola Lookman couldn’t keep their shots on target.
Instead, Samuele Vignato’s sudden long-range snapshot stung Marco Carnesecchi’s gloves, as did the Pedro Pereira daisy-cutter at the dawn of the second half.
Vignato had the ball in the net on 59 minutes with a delightful cross-shot, but it was disallowed for Milan Djuric’s foul on Ederson to get him out of the way.
Stefano Turati parried at the base of the near post from Charles De Ketelaere, but the breakthrough finally arrived at the 70th minute.
Nicolò Zaniolo controlled a ball over the top, Retegui shielded it with his back to goal and laid it off for Samardzic to sweep in with his left boot from just inside the area.
Atalanta almost had another moments later, as Juan Cuadrado saw his counter-attack denied by a desperate Kyriakopoulos sprint back and block.
Sead Kolasinac stung Turati’s gloves after robbing Daniel Maldini and Carnesecchi palmed a Kyriakopoulos free kick round the near post.
Pablo Mari performed a desperate goal-line clearance after Samardzic had twisted and turned to get the shot away from a tricky angle.
Atalanta did lock the result down with another substitute, as Davide Zappacosta cut inside from the left and bent a wonderful right-foot curler into the far bottom corner from the edge of the box.
Atalanta 2-0 Monza
Samardzic 70 (A), Zappacosta 88 (A)
Player statistic
| Berat Djimsiti |  |
54' | ||
| Sead Kolasinac | |
56' | ||
| Lazar Samardžić (Assist: Mateo Retegui) |
 |
70' | ||
| 77' | |
Daniel Maldini | ||
| 82' | |
Luca Caldirola | ||
| Davide Zappacosta (Assist: Lazar Samardžić) |
|
88' |
Match statistic
