Gian Piero Gasperini believes Atalanta ‘did not deserve’ their 2-1 defeat to Napoli, as he emerges from this game with ‘pride and confidence for the future.’
La Dea had only one Serie A defeat all season before this, and had taken the lead through an Ademola Lookman penalty.
However, Victor Osimhen turned it around with a goal and then an assist for the Eljif Elmas winner, while the crossbar and Alex Meret denied a potential equaliser.
“When you emerge from a game like this, against a Napoli side everyone can see, I leave here with the certainty we will have a good season,” Gasperini told DAZN.
“This is a team that is growing, both technically and in fitness terms. We were up to the standard of Napoli and in some cases above them. We probably didn’t deserve to lose and were a little unlucky, but we emerge from this match with pride and confidence for the future.”
The end of the game was very tense, as the referee did not give an obvious corner to Atalanta and declined to add extra stoppages even when Napoli made a double substitution.
“The referee lost grip of the game at the end, but there weren’t any controversial decisions before that. It was an intensive match, played at a high tempo, but very fair from both teams. That was the only situation we could complain about.”
It was good to see the top two go head-to-head in such an open and attacking fashion, both trying to win and score from start to finish.
“We took the lead on a penalty, but had already created chances with Hojlund, could pass it around quickly and until then Napoli hadn’t threatened us.
“It is a pity to concede four minutes later on a corner, when we were a bit slow to react. Napoli have quality and are very clinical, as we saw with the second goal too.
“I was very happy to measure my team against Napoli and saw we can do very well this season.”
Gasperini was missing Luis Muriel, while Duvan Zapata is still only fit for a small portion of the match.
“It wasn’t easy against a defence like Napoli to create so many scoring opportunities, especially as we hit the crossbar. We attacked well, prevented their dangerous counter-attacks, and we need to improve on playing out from the back, as the long ball was used a bit too much in the second half.
“Lookman is doing really well and I really like Hojlund. I am very satisfied with how these lads are doing.”
Atalanta are still having their best ever start to a Serie A season, having failed to qualify for Europe last term.
“You always want to talk about results and positions in the table, but we cannot think of repeating third place for three years in a row. We have players who left, others who are injured, so we are renovating the squad, but the path to consistency is with the style of football.
“The team is growing and improving every week, we already saw tonight big improvements from the game against Atalanta, so that bodes well for the future. We’ll set ourselves no limits.”
I watched the whole game and i never really had the feeling Atalanta would turn the game around Napoli deserved the victory they really strong also defensively
You must not know much about soccer A. Atalanta were superior in the second half and in fairness a draw would have been right.
The league’s greatest striker so far is Osimhen! He’ll surely lead them to the title this season. Lookman has been a complete revelation. Perhaps his team can aim at a top-four finish
Napoli deserved all three points. They created the better chances and Meret only had to make two saves.