Bayer Leverkusen vs Atalanta Preview

Bayer Leverkusen will look to overturn their first-leg loss to Atalanta when they welcome the Italian side to BayArena this Thursday.

Despite taking an early lead through Charles Aranguiz, the hosts were beaten 3-2 in the first leg in Bergamo, with a brace from Luis Muriel and another goal from Ruslan Malinovsky giving Atalanta the advantage ahead of this second leg.

After suffering that loss, things went from bad to worse for Leverkusen as they were beaten in their last league game, losing 1-0 to FC Koln. Part of the biggest disappointment of that loss was the loss of star player Florian Wirtz who limped off with what turned out to be a season-ending ACL injury.

The midfielder has been one of the most influential players in the Leverkusen team and will be a big miss for the hosts who will be desperate to win this competition.

However, losing Wirtz is not the only thing that will hinder Leverkusen. Their defence will also be a source of worry given that they have kept just one clean sheet across their prior 17 competitive outings.

In that run, Leverkusen have conceded two or more goals on nine occasions. To their credit, they have a potent attack that could still turn this tie around after netting an average of 3.1 goals across their prior ten competitive home outings (W7, D2, L1).

For Atalanta, they will look to complete the job they started at the Gewiss Stadium when they travel to Germany on Thursday night.

The visitors are enduring a poor season in the Serie A by their standards and so they will be looking to make their mark in the Europa League this season.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s side are looking to finish in the UCL places in the league however they saw their Serie A top-four ambitions take another hit as they could only manage a 0-0 draw at home to relegation-threatened Genoa at the weekend.

Although not an ideal result, that stalemate did at least extend the club’s run to just two losses across their previous eight competitive outings (W4, D2) and so they will come into this tie confident of getting a result that sends them to the last eight of a European competition for the second time in three seasons.