Slow starting, fast finishing Atalanta will shine
Another week, another crucial clash in Serie A. Both Atalanta and Udinese know this game will have serious implications for their prospects at both ends of the table. One striving for Champions League qualification, one looking to remain in the top flight, but don’t expect edginess from either team, it’s just not in their mindset.
Atalanta will score plenty
All roads point to a home win and a goal fest in this one. “La Dea” are second in the goal-scoring category behind champions Juventus and manager Gian Piero Gasperini only knows one way to win and that is on the attack.
They are on an unbeaten run of ten games, scoring more than once in seven of those ten. On the season they have the most games O3.5 with 16/33 including 7/16 of their home fixtures. They can be slow to get going however with 13 of their games being a draw at the half. They have gone on to win five of those and with Udinese being level 11 times at the break, this is an avenue where we will find the value in this fixture.
Crunch time for I Bianconeri
Udinese for all their troubles this season in Serie A could have seen themselves safely in mid table if it wasn’t for a number of costly goalkeeping errors. Their away form has been appalling from the outset, they’ve won just once on the road all season, drawing five and losing ten. In addition to this they haven’t scored in their last two away games. They do have a good record against Atalanta (5W, 4D, 2L), but those two defeats came in the most recent meetings of the two sides, so it is clear there has been a power shift in the fixture overall.
Long term absentees Behrami and Barak are most likely joined by Fofana and Troost-Ekong for this one, so it is hard to find too many positives from I Bianconeri’s point of view. This won’t stop Igor Tudor from having a go, he does set his stall out to have a go, even if it is to his team’s determent ultimately, which I can foresee here.
Atalanta - Udinese betting tip
Atalanta being prohibitive odds of 1/3 to win does nothing. The price on the win and overs is also fairly tight and given Udinese’s recent away form, it’s hard to have too much faith in them to turn their attacking endeavour into troubling the scoreboard operators.
With that in mind I’m hoping to turn the slow starting theme into some value. I still think Atalanta will win comfortably in the end, but I think that as it gets to the business end of the season, they might tighten up. This combined with Udinese surely becoming a bit more stubborn in the face of relegation, could see a close encounter for 45 minutes at least. That is why I’ve plumped for HT/FT draw/win for Atalanta at 3/1.
