The Top Flight
Fansided

Can Manchester United use Ronaldo’s UCL magic and advance easily out of Group F?

By Santiago Alcedo

Manchester United's Norwegian coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jadon Sancho (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)
Manchester United's Norwegian coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jadon Sancho (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images) /
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Josip Ilicic of Atalanta BC
Josip Ilicic of Atalanta BC (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images) /

Third Place: Atalanta

One of the teams that handed us the most surprises in the past couple of tournaments is Atalanta. Most fans fell in love with Atalanta’s passion and style of football; Gian Piero Gasperini turned this team around and helped them to be one of the best in Italy and a very dangerous club to play in European competitions.

Atalanta faces a difficult season, they lost their star center-back Cristian Romero to Tottenham and Luis Muriel, one of the most important players in the squad, is out indifenetely due to a muscle injury.

This leaves Duvan Zapata alone up top, which could hurt Atalanta’s style of playing. Zapata is one of the best strikers in Italy but he’s used to linking up with Muriel – and by not having him – it is going to cause some problems for the club in their Champions League push.

The Italian side have only won one game in their first three Serie A outings and even though Villareal is not in the best form, I still see Atalanta not qualifying for the next round and bagging third place to gain an entry into the Europa League knockout round.

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