Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini insists his players must focus on the upcoming Champions League clash against Midtjylland without thinking about Liverpool-Ajax.
La Dea and the Dutch team sit second in group D with Atalanta that will travel to Amsterdam for the final match of the group stage next week.
If the Serie A side beat last-placed Midtjylland tomorrow and Ajax fail to beat Liverpool, a draw in The Netherlands will be enough for La Dea to qualify for the last-16 stage.
Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini insists his players must focus on the upcoming Champions League clash against Midtjylland without thinking about Liverpool-Ajax.
La Dea and the Dutch team sit second in group D with Atalanta that will travel to Amsterdam for the final match of the group stage next week.
If the Serie A side beat last-placed Midtjylland tomorrow and Ajax fail to beat Liverpool, a draw in The Netherlands will be enough for La Dea to qualify for the last-16 stage.
“We must only think about our game,” Gasperini said at a press conference.
“We hope we can count on two results in Amsterdam next week, but it changes nothing. It's a game we'll have to play until the end. We need to think about Midtjylland.
“They are the table leaders in Denmark, they have a winning mentality and everybody has struggled against them. I expect a difficult match."
Atalanta will be without four players, but Robin Gosens, who scored against Liverpool last week, will return to action.
“It’s the same situation of Saturday. [Aleksej] Miranchuk, [Ruslan] Malinovskyi and [Mario] Pasalic are out of action and the same is true of [Pierluigi] Gollini. [Robin] Gosens has recovered," said Gasperini.
Atalanta had beaten Liverpool last week but lost to Verona on Saturday.
“We always want to win but it’s not easy to play after games against Liverpool and Ajax. We’ve never had a different approach. We are playing many games and we try to play them in the best possible way.”