Udinese, with Atalanta the former taboo must be dispelled

The bianconeri must contain the two Colombian strikers who have punished them in recent seasons. In the lunch match at 12.30, Gotti seems oriented to line up Pussetto alongside Beto from the start

UDINE. Atalanta-Udinese is a match that in terms of absences starts on an equal footing: Gasperini lacks almost half a defense (Demiral was called up in extremis), Gotti has to do without Pereyra and Deulofeu, the two players with greater class and personality .

Whoever succeeds in replacing the more disqualified and injured players will put a first important brick to build their performance.

Then, obviously, many others will be needed, especially Udinese, which on a technical level, knowledge and personality have something less than Atalanta.

For Gotti’s team it is a complicated exam. You want to say that the squad is long (which is also true), but there are some players who are more difficult to replace than others.

Pereyra, despite having had a contradictory start to the season, is important against higher-caliber teams because no one like him knows how to read and interpret the moments of the matches.

Deulofeu against physical opponents can suffer, but as we have seen with Bologna, when Udinese was outnumbered it was he who turned on the light at Juventus in the second half.

As Gotti pointed out, against opponents who challenge you across the board in one on one (see Verona on stage next Wednesday at Friuli) the ability to skip the Spaniard’s man would have been very useful.

Here, then, that the Juventus coach finds himself with a nice puzzle to solve. Initially replace Deulofeu with the young Samardzic opting in fact for a 3-5-1-1 or place Pussetto alongside Beto. Two different solutions: with the first Udinese would try to focus more on dribbling and ball possession, with the second we would see a team that would seek verticalization much earlier.

Two different ways of interpreting the game against an opponent, in Gotti’s words, which almost always forces you to change the game plan.

Udinese will start with the 3-5-2. Certainly Atalanta cannot be the opponent who pushes Gotti to change. And it matters little that the Goddess, accomplices the men counted in defense, abandon the three-man defensive line to move to 4-2-3-1 with Zappacosta and Mahle used as full-backs.

Speaking of wards, it is precisely on the flanks that Gotti’s last doubts are concentrated: Molina, having recovered the efforts spent with Argentina, should take back the right lane while on the opposite side there is a ballot between the expert but a little off Larsen of this start of the season and the young Udogie. The rest of the team is done with the confirmation of the defensive trio and Arslan in place of Pereyra.

Thanks to the obligation to play with the back four, Gasperini will field both Zapata and Muriel from the first minute. Or maybe he will opt for this more offensive set-up by remembering what the two Colombians have been up to in recent seasons against their former team. Because it is true that Duvan and Luis score a little to all the teams they face, but with Udinese they go wild. On the two occasions in which he faced the Friulians in Bergamo, Muriel threw her in five times: a hat-trick in the 7-1 of ’19-20, a brace last year when it ended 3-2. In that circumstance, the third Nerazzurri goal was signed by Zapata who two years earlier even dropped a three of a kind under the arch of the Rizzi. Muriel scored two goals in Udine in 19-20, Zapata one. Last year Luis answered Pereyra and finished 1-1. For 9 from Bergamo, therefore, eight goals in four matches, for 99 five centers in as many games. Here, if Udinese wants to pass the Atalanta exam, first of all they will have to stop the two terrible ex. And if he manages to play a trick on the other great ex Musso, so much the better. –