We look ahead to Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League game at the New Balance Arena with our Atalanta vs Chelsea prediction and preview.
Atalanta vs Chelsea: The Key Stats
Chelsea are regarded as slight favourites for this UEFA Champions League encounter against an energised Atalanta, earning all three points in 44.0% of the Opta supercomputer’s simulations.
Atalanta have kept eight clean sheets in their 15 Champions League games since the start of last season.
This will be Chelsea’s 100th away game in the European Cup/Champions League. The Blues have 41 wins in 99 away matches to date, which is already the most by any English side through their first 100 matches.
Chelsea’s performance against Arsenal at the end of November, when drawing 1-1 in the Premier League despite playing much of the game with 10 men, felt like a statement of intent; the sky was the limit, and they were ready to provide a challenge on all fronts.
Alas, progress is not always linear, and Enzo Maresca’s young squad rarely perform exactly as expected.
They have somewhat stalled since that Arsenal game – they were overawed in a 3-1 defeat to Leeds United at Elland Road, and were arguably fortunate to leave the Vitality Stadium with a point when drawing 0-0 with Bournemouth at the weekend.
They now complete a trio of away matches in a week with a trip to Bergamo to face an Atalanta side who have gone through a degree of change since they were last platformed for a British audience.
Gian Piero Gasperini, widely considered to be the greatest Atalanta coach of all time, left the club at the end of last season to join Roma.
In Gasperini’s nine years with the club, he achieved UEFA Champions League qualification five times, while his greatest achievement of all was their lifting of the UEFA Europa League in 2024 when they were considered underdogs to Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen.
Atalanta’s choice of replacement for Gasperini, Ivan Jurić, raised a few eyebrows. His spell in charge went about as well as Southampton fans would have expected, and with the club sitting 13th in Serie A, he was himself replaced by Raffaele Palladino in the second week of November.
With three wins from five games and 11 goals scored, it would be fair to say Palladino has reignited Atalanta’s season, and Chelsea can expect a much tougher contest than the Serie A standings may suggest.
Atalanta are no minnows at this level, and despite recent managerial changes, there remains a great deal of quality in their squad.
They have kept eight clean sheets in their 15 UEFA Champions League games since the start of last season. Among teams to have played in both campaigns, only Inter (55% – 11/20) have a higher clean sheet rate than Atalanta (53%).
Chelsea, meanwhile, are winless in their last four away games in the Champions League, last going five in a row without a victory in February 2012.
After a loss to Bayern Munich and a draw versus Qarabag, Maresca could become just the third Chelsea manager not to win any of his first three away matches in charge in the competition, after André Villas-Boas (2011-12) and Luiz Felipe Scolari (2008-09).
This will actually be Chelsea’s 100th away game in the European Cup/Champions League. The Blues have 41 wins in 99 to date, already the most by any English side through their first 100 matches, and second only to Barcelona (44) overall.
Maresca’s side must stay attentive for the full 90 minutes if they are to produce another away victory here. All six of Atalanta’s Champions League goals this season have come in the second half of games. Indeed, La Dea scored three goals in a five-minute second-half spell at Eintracht Frankfurt last time out.
Expect several former Premier League players to be involved for the hosts – namely Ademola Lookman, Gianluca Scamacca and Marten de Roon – but be on the lookout too for a player who feels well-suited to a move to English football in Charles De Ketelaere.
The Belgian has been involved in 11 goals in his last 11 Champions League appearances for Atalanta, with five goals and six assists – he both scored and assisted in his last game in this competition against Frankfurt.
Charles De Ketelaere UCL goal involvements - Atalanta
Chelsea are hardly short of talent themselves, and given he was on the bench for the draw with Bournemouth at the weekend, Blues fans will be hoping Estêvão is in from the start for this match.
The 18-year-old is Chelsea’s top scorer in the Champions League this season with three goals. It’s the joint-most goals a teenager has scored for a Premier League side in a single campaign in the competition, level with Wayne Rooney in 2004-05.
There was a long-awaited return to the starting XI for Cole Palmer against Bournemouth, and the Chelsea star looked promising in his 58-minute appearance, but he might not start again here given his lengthy absence.
Meanwhile, Moisés Caicedo, currently serving a three-match ban domestically, will be fresh for this match. It is currently unclear who will be expected to lead the line for Chelsea in attack after Liam Delap fell foul to a second serious injury of the season, this time hurting his shoulder.
Atalanta vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
Atalanta and Chelsea will meet for the first time in European competition; the Italian side have only won one of their previous seven games against English sides in the UEFA Champions League.
This will be Chelsea’s first away game against an Italian opponent since October 2022 – a 2-0 victory away to Milan. Before that game, the Blues had won only one of their first 10 matches away to Italian sides in the Champions League (4-0 v Lazio in November 2003).
Atalanta vs Chelsea Prediction
The Opta supercomputer predicts a Chelsea victory to be the most likely outcome here, but it is expected to be a tightly-fought match, with the Blues coming out on top in 44% of simulations.
Atalanta have a 30.5% chance of winning, while a draw occurred in just over a quarter of sims (25.4%).
Atalanta vs Chelsea prediction Opta supercomputer
Atalanta vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
Atalanta: Marco Carnesecchi, Berat Djimsiti, Isak Hien, Odilon Kossounou, Davide Zappacosta, Marten de Roon, Mario Pašalić, Raoul Bellanova, Ademola Lookman, Charles De Ketelaere, Gianluca Scamacca
Head Coach: Raffaele Palladino
Chelsea: Robert Sánchez, Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah, Wesley Fofana, Malo Gusto, Moisés Caicedo, Enzo Fernández, Pedro Neto, Cole Palmer, Estevão, João Pedro
Head Coach: Enzo Maresca
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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