Soccer Football - Serie A - Atalanta v Lazio - Gewiss Stadium, Bergamo, Italy - April 6, 2025 Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
BERGAMO, Italy (Reuters) - Atalanta suffered their third consecutive defeat on Sunday, damaging their bid for a Champions League spot, but manager Gian Piero Gasperini dismissed any suggestion that their recent slump is connected to his decision not to renew his contract.
Gasperini has been at Atalanta since 2016, taking the club from a mid-table side to European football regulars and winning the Europa League trophy last season, and has a contract that runs until June 2025 with an option to extend it by a year.
In February, Gasperini said that while he may remain on for another season there will be no further renewal, and he was asked after the 1-0 loss to Lazio whether those words have had an impact on results.
"This is stupid," Gasperini told Sky Sports.
"After those words we won 5-0 against Empoli and 4-0 against Juventus. It seems a convenient thing to throw in like this.
"Last season I signed in August, after the first game of the championship. This thing has nothing to do with it, it is an attempt to look for alibis."
On a day when nothing went right for Atalanta, they also had a mix-up over their substitutions. Forward Ademola Lookman was accidentally taken off while Atalanta were chasing an equaliser.
"Ederson was supposed to come off, we made a mistake with the numbers, today wasn't our day," Gasperini said.
"We weren't able to intervene before Lookman came off."
Atalanta were table toppers at one stage, but now, third in the standings, they find themselves in a battle to hold on to a top four place which would bring them Champions League football again next season.
"Going from the Scudetto dream to this dimension is right, this is the dimension of Atalanta," Gasperini told DAZN.
"We are fighting for third and fourth place. We have to find enthusiasm by understanding that this has always been the goal. We have seven games to play, we are still in it."
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
