Home form meets away form
Sassuolo and Atalanta face off at the Mapei Stadium in the province of Modena in northern Italy on Saturday in what looks like a very interesting clash due to Sassuolo's strong home form and Atalanta's strong away form. This has traditionally been a very entertaining, but lopsided match-up in Atalanta's favour featuring a tonne of goals but is it time this somewhat new-look Sassuolo turns this tie around?
Sassuolo
The Neroverdi have kicked off the season with 2 wins and 3 losses with every game but one ending with over 2.5 goals (18 goals to be precise) which is ridiculous. De Zerbi's men have scored 10 of those 18 goals in those 5 games which is absolutely acceptable but scoring that amount and still losing 3 games is however not acceptable.
Italian ace Domenico Berardi has already banged in 5 goals and is absolutely pivotal for this Sassuolo side, no Berardi no party. Attacking colleague's Caputo and frenchman Gregoire have also impressed with a combined 3 goals and 2 assists between them meaning that Sassuolo have a well functioning attack unit. The same can unfortunately not be said about their defence who have shipped 8 goals in said 5 games and have, at times, been calamitous (away at Roma being the perfect example).
What Sassuolo have going for them is that they are strong at home which could be seen last season when they only lost 4 games over the whole campaign, the Mapei stadium is no easy place to travel to. The big question is though if they can keep Atalanta's lethal offence at bay because with the way they have been defending so far it seems unlikely.
Atalanta
La Dea have started the new season in the same fashion they ended the last one on, strongly. After 3 wins, a draw and a defeat Gasperini's men find themselves in 3rd behind Juve and above Napoli after some really solid showing including an away win against Roma during the last round.
Atalanta were Serie A's 3rd best away performers last season and nothing is different this time around. They are the leagues only team to have won all away games so far and are one of the very few teams that actually perform better on the road which is an absolute conundrum.
The fact that Atalanta qualified for last seasons Champions League means that they could not only keep their best players in Duvan Zapata (28 goals last season) and Papu Gomez (11 goals and 13 assists) but also add class players such as Luis Muriel and Ruslan Malinovskyi which will make all the difference in the world when their schedule gets hectic.
Things are all in all looking very good for La Dea and they have been banging goals like nothing, expect that to continue against a Sassuolo side with an iffy defence.
Betting tip
Due to both teams statistics i will definitely be backing Over 2.5 goals at 11/20 with Bethard.
