Matchday 14 of the Italian Seria A completes on Monday, December 2 as Roma take on Atalanta at the Stadio Olimpico. It will be a battle of two teams at the exact opposite ends of the footballing fortunes. It has been a disastrous start to the new season for Roma, who are now on their third head coach just three months into it. Winning only four games out of his first 12 led to the sacking of Serbian head coach Juric, who probably wasn’t the best choice to begin with. During the last international break, the club directors signed a well known and experienced (perhaps too experienced) man to get things right – Claudio Ranieri. Will the “Tinkerman” be able to do one last miracle, this time at the Eternal City? I personally doubt it.

Roma In Turmoil

If we have to use one word to describe the current state of AS Roma, that would be turmoil. The management of the club don’t know what they are doing, changing coaches like chewing gums. Their passionate fans are on the edge. And their squad is just bad. They don’t have enough quality players to compete for trophies. Regardless of who comes in as head coach, there is not enough quality material to work with.

During the last five years, the club has had five different head coaches, and four of them have been changed in 2024 alone. The year started with Jose Mourinho, who was sacked on January 16, despite taking the club to two consecutive European finals for the first time in over 40 years. The Special One led them to win the Conference League in 2021/22 and lost the Europa League Final in 22/23. Mourinho was willing to stay and keep on working, and it looks like they made a really bad decision sacking him. The actual reasons from the club owners the Friedkin family were never made clear to the fans.

The sacking of Mourinho is when things started to go really downhill for the Giallorossi. He was replaced by fan favorite Daniele De Rossi, a former player, youth product and absolute club legend. However, Rossi did not have any head coaching experience whatsoever, and yet at least he had passion and the fans were behind him. His sacking, at the start of this season, after only four games (three draws and a defeat), was once again done without any explanation and for no apparent reasons. Of course, not winning in the first four matches is not an ideal start, but coaches should be given more time and three draws are not the end of the world.

Still, the decision was made, and then came along Ivan Juric, having previously managed mid-level clubs like Verona and Torino. The Serbian lasted just two months. Three months into the new season, and Roma is now on their third coach for this campaign and the fourth for 2024. All hail the Tinkerman, Claudio Ranieri, who has already been sacked twice by Roma and is now on his third stint with the club. Given his advanced age (73), it’s obvious that he is not a long-term solution. In fact, it’s known already that he will move to a director role at the club next season, and he will be the one that has to decide on the appointment of yet another head coach. Yet, stability and a long term project is exactly what Roma needs.

In fact, Roma have been a hot mess since the American brothers Dan and Ryan Friedkin (The Friedkin Group) bought the club in 2020 for $700 million. Americans don’t know much about the European game of football, and they just see it as business. They are punching the numbers without having any passion for the sport. They’ve made bare minimum investments, there is no new stadium in the works, as it was promised, and the coaches just keep on changing one after the other.

AS Roma Expected Lineup

Since we have a game on our hands to analyze, let’s switch our focus back to this Roma v Atalanta prediction and our top Seria A betting pick for Monday, December 2. Ranieri made his debut at Napoli where the Giallorossi suffered a narrow 1:0 defeat. Followed was a visit to London where they played against an in-form Tottenham team that had just hammered Man City by 0:4. Roma managed to score a late equalizer in the 90th minute thanks to Germany’s legendary defender Mats Hummels, and that was certainly a positive result for the team.

The other positive bits of news from their draw against Spurs in North London were the performances of Paredez and the return of Milan winger and loanee Saelemaekers. Paredez, who has barely featured this season, put on an excellent display and was praised by the Italian media after the game. Saelemaekers played his first game in two months after suffering an ankle injury. The young Belgian winger is certainly a player that Roma could use at the moment, as they struggle to create chances.

Ranieri is expected to field Soule and El Shaarawy on the wings. Kone, Cristante and Pellegrini will form the midfield trio. The lone target man Artem Dovbyk up front. The defense is well known – Svilar between the sticks, Celik and Angelino as wing backs, and Mancini and Ndicka the central defenders.

Atalanta Flying High

For all the things that have been going wrong in Roma, Atalanta are the exact opposite. Despite being a much smaller club in terms of history, finances, and fanbase, Atalanta have shown what with hard work, vision for the future, good management and the right transfers, a club can make great progress even with limited finances. They won the Europa League last season against an undefeated Bayer Leverkusen team.

Lookman has been an absolute revelation, and the addition of Retegui has really put them over the top. The Argentina-born Italian is now the leading goalscorer in the Calcio with 12.

Atalanta play an intense and direct style of football. Their pace is high, and they create a lot of chances. In terms of our Seria A betting picks and this Roma v Atalanta prediction, the visitors will certainly create loads of problems for Roma’s shaky defense.

Roma v Atalanta Prediction

An interesting game awaits us on Monday night at the Olimpico. We have prepared a banker of a betting pick, so what are you waiting for? Register below and get our top bet for this game and the ones ahead.