Relegated Parma play host to top-four contenders Atalanta at the Stadio Ennio Tardini on Sunday afternoon in their penultimate home match in Serie A. While the Crusaders won just 8.82% of their league games this season, La Dea boast a solid 58.82% success ratio in top-flight fixtures in 2020/21.
A 1-0 away defeat to Torino last time out saw Parma suffer relegation to Serie B for the first time since returning to the top-flight in 2018/19. Meanwhile, Atalanta are third in the standings, albeit level on points with fifth-placed AC Milan, and cannot afford a slip-up in Emilia-Romagna.
Parma vs. AC Milan Head-To-Head
After claiming three straight victories between 2013 and 2014, Parma have failed to beat Atalanta in Serie A seven times in a row (D1, L6), losing the last five by an aggregate score of 16-2.
Worryingly, the hosts have conceded at least three goals in four of their last five league meetings with the Bergamo-based team, letting in 2+ second-half goals in all five.
Parma have lost both of their last two home Serie A matches against Atalanta, as many reverses as they had in their previous 18 match-ups on home turf in the competition (W9, D7, L2).
A 3-0 victory in the reverse fixture back in January means La Dea can complete a third successive league double over Roberto D’Aversa’s side, having won each top-flight encounter with Parma since the latters’ return to Serie A.
Teams Recent Forms
D’Aversa’s players have collapsed side securing a 2-0 home victory over Roma on Matchday 27, going winless in their subsequent seven Serie A games (D1, L6). Parma’s defensive woes saw them concede an average of 2.71 goals per match across that seven-game sequence, with only dead-last Crotone letting in more league goals than the Crusaders (71) this season.
At home, the Gialloblu have won just one of their last 15 Serie A fixtures (D5, L9), courtesy of that triumph against Roma in mid-March. Furthermore, the hosts have scored a league-low 13 goals on home soil this Serie A season at an average of just 0.76 per match. A lack of concentration in the closing stages of play has witnessed Parma score inside the final 15 minutes just once in 17 home Serie A outings this term.
In the meantime, the visitors have gone into overdrive since suffering a 1-0 away defeat to Inter Milan in early March, having put together eight Serie A matches without losing since then (W6, D2). But Gian Piero Gasperini’s men have gone from consecutive away league victories to back-to-back 1-1 draws, both of which featured precisely one goal in both halves.
Atalanta’s tally of 79 goals scored this season is second to none, even though La Dea have netted twice or more in just 58.82% of their league matches so far (20/34). Yet, the 2019/20 Champions League quarter-finalists have scored a league-high 20 first-half goals away from home this campaign.
Predicted Line-ups
Parma (4-3-3): Luigi Sepe; Giuseppe Pezzella, Bruno Alves, Yordan Osorio, Maxime Busi; Jasmin Kurtic, Simon Sohm, Alberto Grassi; Gervinho, Andreas Cornelius, Juraj Kucka
Atalanta (3-4-3): Marco Sportiello; Cristian Romero, Jose Luis Palomino, Berat Djimsiti; Hans Hateboer, Marten de Roon, Remo Freuler, Robin Gosens; Matteo Pessina, Ruslan Malinovskiy, Duvan Zapata