Atalanta looks to snap home skid against winless, last-place Venezia

Three straight losses for one side, five in a row for the other: the New Balance Arena hosts a matchup between two clubs desperate to stop the bleeding. Atalanta, eleventh in Serie A, is looking to snap a negative streak against a Venezia side that still hasn't tasted victory this season. Few matchups this campaign look as lopsided on paper, though the home side's recent form hardly inspires confidence either.

Atalanta comes in with a record of 2 wins, 0 draws and 3 losses in its last five matches, scoring 5 goals and conceding 7. Over that five-game stretch the club strung together two wins before dropping three straight, a dip in form that lines up with a rough patch at home. In Serie A play this season, at home, Maurizio Sarri's side is averaging 1.333 goals scored and 1 allowed per match across a sample of three games, with 33% of those matches ending in a clean sheet, and it tends to do its damage in the first 15 minutes.

Venezia, meanwhile, sits dead last: 20th place, no wins, no draws, five losses, 4 goals scored and 13 allowed on the season. Its last five matches have gone about as badly as possible: five straight defeats. Looking at the full-season sample, home and away combined, Giovanni Stroppa's side is averaging just 0.8 goals scored per match against 2.6 allowed, with a 0% clean sheet rate, and tends to find the net, when it does, between the 61st and 75th minutes.

The standings tell the story: Atalanta has 6 points from 5 matches played, while Venezia has none in the same number of games, a gap of 6 points that actually understates the difference suggested by the table.

A head-to-head record that speaks for itself

The history between these two sides is lopsided: in the 5 meetings on record, Atalanta has won 4, there has been 1 draw, and Venezia hasn't taken a single one. The combined scoreline reads 11 goals for Atalanta to just 1 for Venezia, a gap that looms large heading into this latest chapter.

Probable lineups

With low confidence since this is a lineup projected from recent matches, Atalanta could field Marco Carnesecchi in goal, with Giorgio Scalvini, Odilon Kossounou, Raoul Bellanova and Sead Kolasinac across the back line, Éderson, Lazar Samardzic and Gianluca Gaetano in midfield, and a forward line of Charles De Ketelaere, Gianluca Scamacca and Giacomo Raspadori.

For Venezia, also a projection, the lineup could see Filip Stankovic between the posts, Joël Schingtienne, Armel Bella-Kotchap and Ridgeciano Haps in defense, Kike Pérez, Antoine Hainaut, Simon Sohm, Gianluca Busio and Thierry Correia in midfield, with Akor Adams and John Yeboah leading the attack.

What the numbers say

Our model calculates the following probabilities for this match:

Atalanta is the clear favorite, though not overwhelmingly so: a 14% chance for Venezia and a 22% chance of a draw leave room for an upset. Expected goals, also our own estimate, come in at 2.1 for Atalanta and 0.89 for Venezia, a combined 2.99 that lines up with a 53% probability of over 2.5 goals in the match. The chance of both teams scoring sits at 40%, which tracks with a Venezia defense that hasn't kept a clean sheet in any match in the season sample cited above. It's worth noting these figures are our own projection, not a betting line.

With Atalanta eager to snap its home skid and Venezia still searching for its first win, the New Balance Arena awaits a match where the home side enters as the clear favorite, though the last-place visitors will at least try to close the gap the standings suggest.