Gasperini slams ‘below par’ Atalanta after 3-2 loss to Como

Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini was left feeling bitterly disappointed by some of his players’ performances in Tuesday night’s 3-2 loss at home to Como, claiming that his side were ‘below par’ and that the opposition were ‘better than us’.

Davide Zappacosta gave Atalanta the lead after 18 minutes, but three goals within 12 minutes of the second half, the first of which came 20 seconds after the re-start, sent Cesc Fabregas’s side on their way to a 3-2 victory. Ademola Lookman converted a consolation penalty with the final kick of the game.

Atalanta struggled after their opener went in, and it was Como who had the better share of the chances after that.

When Como went 3-1 up, Atalanta enjoyed the majority of the possession, but were unable to break their opposition down until the final seconds.

Gasperini: ‘Como were better than Atalanta’

“We started well, then little by little we faded away,” Gasperini told DAZN after full-time.

“I thought we looked drained in terms of energy, while they looked more dynamic. We put several of their players in difficulty in the first half, but then we started conceding goals in the second.

“We’ve come out of this game really badly: We made several changes to try other players, but we definitely didn’t have a good game, Como did better than us.”

Gasperini explained what went wrong for Atalanta in terms of their defence.

“We’ve conceded from set pieces in other games, but today we had difficulty in midfield and they often got into our area freely. We were below par.”

Gasperini also handed a senior debut to 20-year-old striker Vanja Vlahovic (no relation to Juve’s Dusan, by the way). The coach was asked why the youngster came on ahead of Nicolo Zaniolo.

“Vlahovic is a centre-forward, he came in and also got us a penalty. Zaniolo will play when he is ready and will give us his full contribution. We are waiting for him to get to a good level.”