Analysis:

While Lazio are slowly coming out of a crisis, the home side Atalanta are in poor form going into this match. Atalanta who had hoped for European qualification after a promising transfer campaign, find themselves in 19th place, just one point clear of bottom club Siena, and on their fourth Coach of the campaign to date.

Angelo Gregucci was first shown the door after a horrendous start to the season with four defeats in four games. Then young coach Antonio Conte took the reins and sparked a renaissance, gaining nine points from the first 15 available to him. But things took the turn for the worse when an angry confrontation with disgruntled supporters during the 2-0 home defeat to Napoli brought about the end of his reign. Youth team Coach Valter Bonacina oversaw last week’s loss in Palermo before Bortolo Mutti was confirmed as the new man in charge on Monday.

In Bortolo Mutti he could be the right man to rescue them. He played for the club as a striker in the early 80s and managed them in the late 90s. Mutti is well known for the miracles he worked with Messina, taking the newly promoted Sicilian minnows to seventh in the 2004-05 Serie A season. However he faces a mammoth task here as relegation rivals Siena, Livorno and Catania are all steadily improving under new Coaches.

Lazio are moving up in the standings. They had to go through 14 games without a win but Coach Davide Ballardini somehow clung on to his job and seems to have steadied the ship around.

Lazio's only recent loss came against Inter Milan at the San Siro. In between crucial home wins over Genoa and Livorno, and last week they earned a creditable draw at Udinese.

As for the team news, Atalanta's injury list includes Edgar Barreto, Thomas Manfredini and Gianpaolo Bellini, while Gyorgy Garics is suspended.

While for Lazio, Simone Del Nero, Pasquale Foggia and Francelino Matuzalem are injured, Alexsandar Kolarov is suspended and Mourad Meghni is at the African Nations Cup.

Take Lazio on level ball not to lose here.

Cheers and good luck,
Cruiser

The Statistics :

ATALANTA LAST SIX HOME FORM
	DATE	RESULT		OPPOSITION
	2010-01-06	L	0-2	H v Napoli
	2009-12-13	D	1-1	H v Inter_Milan
	2009-11-29	L	1-2	H v Roma_AS
	2009-11-07	L	2-5	H v Juventus
	2009-10-25	W	3-1	H v Parma
	2009-10-04	D	1-1	H v Milan_AC
LAZIO LAST SIX AWAY FORM
	DATE	RESULT		OPPOSITION
	2010-01-10	D	1-1	A v Udinese
	2009-12-20	L	1-0	A v Inter_Milan
	2009-12-06	L	1-0	A v Roma_AS
	2009-11-22	D	0-0	A v Napoli
	2009-11-01	D	1-1	A v Siena
	2009-10-25	L	2-0	A v Bari

HEAD TO HEAD ATALANTA v LAZIO
DATE	HOME	SCORE	AWAY
2008-11-30	Atalanta	2-0	Lazio
2007-09-23	Atalanta	2-1	Lazio
2007-02-11	Atalanta	0-0	Lazio
2004-10-03	Atalanta	1-1	Lazio
2002-10-06	Atalanta	0-1	Lazio
2002-02-24	Atalanta	0-1	Lazio

The Pick :

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