Atalanta have certainly had a season to remember! The Serie A outfit endured a disastrous start to the campaign, and new head coach Gian Piero Gasperini looked to be on the verge of dismissal before a dramatic upturn in the team’s fortunes saw them rise straight up the Serie A table.
They finished up in fourth place – a finish which sees them returning to European competition for the first time in 26 years next season where they will battle in the Europa League.
Of course, the foundation of any successful campaign has to be strength at the back. While the defenders do of course play an imperative part in that, the man between the sticks is the main guy as far as defensive organising goes.
So, to continue our “Club Review” series, we will now be looking at Atalanta’s custodians employed this season. Only two men put their gloves on for the team this season, so now we have a chance to weigh up just how good an inclusion each of them would have been for all the fantasy managers out there!
Atalanta’s goalkeeping situation has really been a tale of two jerseys really. The big hitter was first choice stopper Etrit Berisha. The 28-year-old Albanian international has been on loan at the club this term, with Atalanta having the choice to buy his services permanently before the end of June. That is surely an option they will be looking to take up!
Berisha managed to end the season with an great 53 points, with 11 clean sheets from 26 starts. That isn’t a bad record at any level, let alone Serie A! He only conceded an average of precisely one goal per game, picking the ball out of his own net 26 times. Only two yellow cards and a tempting valuation of only 3.00m gives him a Performance / Price (P/P) score of 17.0, which is massively impressive! By EuroFantasyLeague scoring, he was the 20th best goalkeeper in the entire game this season, and 222nd best player all in.
The undoubted lowlight of Berisha’s season was wearing the gloves during the team’s heavy 7-1 loss to Inter Milan back in March, but did feature between the sticks when his side managed a 2-2 draw with Champions League finalists Juventus a few weeks ago.
Less than 1% of teams have Berisha in their team – but that number would do well to jump up next season given his assured presence in Atalanta’s goal. That is should player and club decide to make the move permanent of course – but why either wouldn’t would be anyone’s guess.
On the few occasions that Berisha wasn’t able to fulfil his duties, he was often deputised by Pierluigi Gollini, another keeper on loan – this time from Aston Villa.
Gollini managed four appearances this season, but only conceded a single goal. He still managed a single booking as well, but three clean sheets out of four isn’t something that should be overlooked – that is a cracking achievement from the 22-year-old.
He has represented Italy up to U21 level, but if he can keep that sort of form up then he will surely get his chance as a starter for the senior side at some stage.
His value at 2.50m means he has a P/P score of 10.8 – while that almost pales in comparison to Berisha, it’s still a great score. The fact that he managed 20 points from those four games – less than a sixth of the number of performances – shows that he is a stopper of real promise. Fantasy managers would do well to bear him in mind for the 2017-18 season.
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