Yahoo Sports Serie A | Roma 0-2 Atalanta: Unstoppable Dea doom sorry Giallorossi
Marten de Roon’s deflected effort and a late header from Nicolò Zaniolo against his old club sent Roma to a fourth straight Serie A defeat and gave Atalanta their eighth win on the bounce.
The Giallorossi made their home debut under Claudio Ranieri, who lost away to Napoli and oversaw a spectacular comeback to draw 2-2 with Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday. With Mario Hermoso injured plus Nicolò Pisilli suspended, Paulo Dybala returned to the starting XI in a 3-5-2 formation. La Dea won seven Serie A games in a row and crushed Young Boys 6-1 on Tuesday, though Davide Zappacosta, Ben Godfrey and Gianluca Scamacca were still out of action.
See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.
Leandro Paredes stung Marco Carnesecchi’s gloves with a scorcher from distance in the fourth minute, then Manu Koné hit a similar effort only a few inches wide of the top corner with the goalkeeper stranded.
Ademola Lookman had the ball in the net after 23 minutes, but he was offside when redirecting the wayward Raoul Bellanova volley at the back post.
Charles De Ketelaere only glanced an Ederson cross into the arms of Mile Svilar and Mats Hummels prevented Mateo Retegui tapping in from six yards on an Odilon Kossounou pull-back from the by-line.
Roma had a huge chance straight after the restart, Dovbyk at full stretch only able to graze his toes to an inspired Dybala flick when kept onside by Matteo Ruggeri, as Carnesecchi managed to smother.
Nicolò Zaniolo was loudly jeered by the home fans as he came on against his former club, having left in rather bitter circumstances.
Atalanta took the lead at the end of a long attacking move when a clearance ended up at the end of the area to Marten de Roon, whose strike took a big deflection off Zeki Celik to completely wrong-foot Svilar.
Hummels hobbled off touching his thigh and Roma almost equalised when Alexis Saelemaekers dummied a cross, cutting inside to find Gianluca Mancini at the back post, but at full stretch the defender couldn’t manage to steer it on target.
Bryan Cristante also went off with a muscular issue and Ederson should’ve made it 2-0, turning wide off the inside of the boot from six yards as Marco Brescianini rolled across from the left.
Zaniolo was jeered even louder when he doubled Atalanta’s lead in the final minute with a glancing header on Juan Cuadrado’s corner, taking a nick off Mancini to loop into the far top corner from a tricky angle. He took off his jersey and rushed to celebrate wildly under the section of away fans behind the goal, relishing this moment against his former club.
Roma 0-2 Atalanta
De Roon 69 (A), Zaniolo 89 (A)
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