Villarreal vs Atalanta: Champions League Gamethread

Let’s do this. Us vs Atalanta. As I type, Manchester United is being held to a draw by checks notes Young Boys. If that holds then a win today would put us top of the group right out of the gates.

I am so relieved that Pau Torres and Dani Parejo are back I feel like I’m about to bust. With these two, we should be very press resistant today and stand a much better chance at being able to control the speed of play. Yeremi Pino continues to get trust from the manager and Danjuma has not yet sufficiently shown Emery his understanding of the system so he starts on the bench. Seeing Rulli in goal really surprised me, because it appeared as though Emery had settled on him (to our chagrin) as the La Liga keeper, but now he’s trusting him in a cup as well. My assumption is that this means we will see Asenjo when league play returns.

We have a lot of option off the bench. When we’re fully healthy, our depth looks really good, and other than Parejo I feel like we have a fairly dependable replacement for almost everyone on the pitch. Playing at home, I think this is a match we should really press on for the win in.

Here’s the Atalanta lineup. Join me in booing and hissing at the very idea of lineup videos:

Thoughts?

Will we be able to get a win today? Will Parejo and Pau show signs of rust? Hit me with your thoughts below.