Things are not looking great right now. Our performance in the league has been sub-optimal to say the least. We did well to qualify from our Champions League group but now face a PSG side that will sweep us aside with ease. Our last hope is in the Coppa Italia.
JANUARY TRANSFER BUSINESS
There were four senior team departures in total in the month with a further two of our youth prospects also taking their leave.
Firstly, the youth: Danish striker Simon Brandhof (£2m, Porto) and Dejair Palermo (£1.6m, Palmeiras) were both free signings in 2023 when they arrived from FC København and Palmeiras respectively. They both have plenty of potential for the future but with younger player progressing much more quickly beyond them I felt the time was right to cash in.
Leaving from the senior team, Marcus Edwards has gone out to Roma on loan for the rest of the season with a mandatory £7.75m fee attached, Mini-Messi never really made it stick in my team and was a somewhat unfortunate casualty of my decision to abandon any efforts at playing with wide attackers. Marco Carnesecchi has moved on to Everton for a fee of £3m, as my back up goalkeeper he only ever made 5 appearances during my time here but he’s still only 24 years old and despite not really looking like every taking the No.1 shirt here it is likely he’ll do well at a club like Everton.
Carles Aleña was my beau. My exception signing. He cost me £1.6m from Barcelona in January 2022 and has deputised across all three roles of my midfield but never really made himself a starter for us - he’ll always be remembered for his winning goal against FM Grasshopper’s Atlético Junior in La Copa LQ. When Shanghai SIPG offered £20m for his services, I felt obliged to accept.
The final outgoing player of this window was a big one, one which I had no choice in. Thiago Almada’s £38m release clause feels like an absolute steal for Atlético de Madrid. Almada made 147 appearances in an Atalanta shirt, scoring 33 goals and laying on another 34 for his teammates. A considerable profit for the man we signed for just £7m back in 2021 but it leaves a considerable gap to be filled.
The one arrival in January was prompted by that move for Almada. My intention is that either Daniel Nachev or even Søren Knudsen will be the long term replacement but with our midfield now two men down (when you include Aleña’s move) we needed another body to maintain the depth. This move was perhaps led ever so slightly by some level of personal affection but Christian Eriksen comes in on a loan from Inter for the remainder of the season.
RESULTS
We’ll get the obvious one out of the way first. Our Champions League First Knockout Round tie with PSG went exactly as expected with the French side taking control in the first leg before blowing us away in the second. Brenner’s 26th minute equaliser at the Gewiss Stadium gave us brief hope and even at 3-1 we knew there was still a small chance - sadly PSG’s 10th and 13th minute goals in the second leg put any hope of a revival to bed quite early.
The Coppa Italia was our great hope for the season but even that slipped through our hands. Our Quarter Final win over Udinese set us up with a two legged Semi against Lazio. The Rome side were relentless over two legs beating us 7-1 on aggregate.
So, onto Serie A action. We were against the odds here and heavily reliant on those ahead of us slipping up if we wanted to meet our pre-season expectations. The Ritorno started so well with four consecutive wins - the Sassuolo game was mindblowing as Brenner’s five goals shot us to a 6-4 win. Sadly, our performances against the bigger teams let us down again as we slipped to successive defeats against Inter and Juvents before having to complete a second half turnaround against Sampdoria to seal the three points.
We went into March beating Benevento away and Fiorentina at home in well deserved wins before coming up short against old foes Cagliari. The defeat against Napoli left us all but out of the reckoning for a top four finish.
Our hopes of Champions League Football at this stage were slim, it was possible but we’d have to win every remaining game and hope that others slipped along the way. Our win against Roma maybe doesn’t carry the prestige it once would have given their in-game struggles but it was a happy 3 points nonetheless. Then it all came crashing down - consecutive losses to Chievo Verona and fellow top four challengers Milan killed off our pursuit of top tier European football. We finished out the season on a relative high by winning our last five games… it left a sour taste in my mouth considering our results in those five fixtures at the Andata end of the season - had we not dropped 8 points in those games we’d have sealed 4th place.
We finish the league season in 7th place. It’s European football but nowhere near the level we need to be hitting at this club. Our head-to-head record against Napoli this season is what denied us Europa League.
THE NUMBERS BEHIND MY WORST SEASON YET
It was Brenner who topped the appearance charts with 48(1) appearances this season but in minutes played he comes second with 4,213 minutes, Pau Torres completed 4,302 minutes in his 48 appearances.
In what has been a disastrous season we see Brenner have his most successful period with a total of 29 goals, French wonderkid Aaron Ntella Samba is second with 16 and Edmond Tapsoba was third with 6 - no penalties this year.
Hakan Çalhanoğlu also had his most successful season with 20 assists. Aaron Ntella Samba came second again with 11 and new signing Emerson was in third with 7.
Donnarumma was supposed to be the big saviour of our season but he only managed 13 clean sheets in his 45 appearances, managing to concede a whopping 61 goals in the remaining 32 games.
WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG? WHAT’S NEXT?!
I desperately wanted this to be the season where I go out with a bang by bringing home a trophy. Maybe my team was too inexperienced with its average age of 23. Maybe throwing every cent I had at Donnarumma was the wrong move when I still had a very competent goalkeeper in Dominik Livakovic. Maybe losing Eduardo Camavinga hit us harder than I imagined it could.
In my third and fourth season it felt somewhat like we had plateaued but what I didn’t realise that it wasn’t a plateau, it was simply the peak approaching a cliff edge wanting for us to dive off. It’s beginning to move in my mind that I should have departed Atalanta when things peaked in our Champions League Final year, I was almost too wedded to the idea of a single club save.
For now, I’m not sure what to do next. My manager’s contract at Atalanta expires on 30th June 2025 and I’ve been offered a three year extension - God only knows why - is there still hope for something to be done with this Atalanta team? A UEFA Europa Conference League win? Or is it time to step away and let the AI ruin things as they usually do?