Manchester United will be travelling to Italy to face Atalanta in their fourth Group F game of the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League season. United currently lead their group with two wins and six points from their first three games, one point ahead of Atalanta, who have four points from their three games and are level on points with Villareal. Young Boys are fourth in the group with three points. The group is an exciting one, and Manchester United and Atalanta are currently looking to be the teams to go through from this group. Two weeks ago, these two teams met in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford, where United won 3-2. Here, we will use the recent UCL stats to preview the game between Atalanta and Manchester United.
Manchester United have had a sudden dip in their domestic form, as they have gone down from challenging for the title to fifth spot with 17 points from 10 games, eight points behind leaders Chelsea. They suffered an away 2-4 defeat at Leicester, before losing 0-5 at home to Liverpool. After the humiliating defeat against Liverpool, the Red Devils and their manager Ole Gunnar Solksjaer need to make a comeback as soon as possible.
The above viz shows the xGA or expected goals against stat for the various teams in the Champions League. Here, one can notice that all three teams competing to go through from Group F, Atalanta, Villareal and Manchester United all have similar xGA values. Man Utd’s xGA value is 5.59, while Atalanta’s is 5.049. Both the Italian club and Thr Red Devils have only conceded five goals each in their first three games in the campaign.
In terms of xG, Atalanta have recorded a much higher xG than United, with an xG of 4.93 compared to United’s 3.90. Ole’s men have scored six goals in the three games and top the group with two wins. Atalanta have scored five goals and have four points in their three games.
This is the shot map for Atalanta in the two teams’ most recent meeting two weeks back at Old Trafford. A great first-half performance saw Atalanta take a 2-0 lead. They took 12 shots in the game and had an xG of 1.60 in the game. Atalanta were able to score both their goals from very close range, almost inside the six-yard box.
This is Manchester United’s shot map in their comeback victory over Atalanta in their previous UCL game. After a poor first half, United came back strong in the second to score three goals, all from the left-hand side of the opponent’s box. One can expect this game to be another goal-scoring thriller, and maybe Atalanta can use their home advantage to get a victory over The Red Devils.
Atalanta’s Predicted Starting Lineup(3-4-2-1): GK: Juan Musso, CBs: Marten de Roon, Merih Demiral, Jose Palomino, LWB: Maehle, RWB: Davide Zappacosta, CMs: Koopmeiners, Remo Freuler, CAMs: Pasalic, Ilicic, ST: Davide Zapata
Manchester United’s Predicted Starting Lineup(3-4-1-2): GK: David De Gea, CBs: Harry Maguire, Raphael Varane, Viktor Lindelof, LWB: Luke Shaw, RWB: Aaron Wan-Bissaka, CDMs:Fred, Pogba, CAM: Bruno Fernandes, CFs: Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford
