Roma-Atalanta 2-1: thirty-eight shots, twenty box entries to two, and it took the 93rd minute. The bill came due by a whisker

The verdict, before the numbers

At the Olimpico, Roma beat Atalanta 2-1 deep into stoppage time. Three wins from three; Atalanta's first defeat of the season.

The day before, we had published a preview titled "six deserved points against six points from 0.74 expected". It went the way we said, and this is normally the moment to feel pleased. We are not going to, because inside the match there is something that does not add up, and it concerns us.

The three things we wrote

We read them back one by one, as always, including the ones we got wrong.

«If Atalanta sit at thirty PPDA again, Roma will be all over them»

Right.

Atalanta's PPDA was 28.6: they let Roma make almost twenty-nine passes before going to disturb them. Against Bologna it was 30.3, against Sassuolo 18.8. This is not an accident, it is an identity.

At the other end Roma were at 7.2. Two opposite ideas of football on the same pitch for ninety minutes.

«If box entries finish 15 to 5 for Roma, we already know how it went»

Right, and we undershot it.

They finished 20 to 2.

Twenty times Roma completed a pass inside their opponents' final twenty metres. Twice for Atalanta. It is Roma's second consecutive twenty after Lecce, and it takes the season tally to 48 box entries made against 6 conceded: nobody in Serie A is close.

«Roma have gone ahead early in both matches»

Wrong.

Goalless first half. And in the 47th, on the first real thrust of the second period, Atalanta went in front through Éderson. Gasperini said it better than we did afterwards: "we found ourselves behind after a completely one-sided first half and after conceding one single shot".

Two out of three, then. Which is better than we managed with PSG, where we got one out of three.

The number that does not add up

Now the uncomfortable part, which is also the most interesting.

Roma took thirty-eight shots. Thirty-eight. And their most dangerous attempt of the ninety minutes was worth 0.37 expected goals.

Not one above forty per cent. Thirty-eight shots, five of them from decent positions, and never a genuine one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

That figure says two things at once, and they need keeping apart:

The first is to their credit. Accumulating 3.54 expected goals without ever having a clear-cut chance means putting the ball inside the opposition box over and over. That is pure territorial dominance.

The second is a limit. An attack producing that much volume and that little quality depends on the sum, not the moment. And the sum, over ninety minutes, can easily fall short — for eighty-eight minutes it did.

In between, two frames hit by Santiago Castro: the post in the 63rd from 0.33, the crossbar in the 87th from 0.32. And Carnesecchi, who kept Atalanta upright for as long as he could.

And Roma's two goals are worth 0.14

Here comes the paradox that makes this match different from how anyone else will tell it.

Hermoso, 88th minute, header from a Soulé corner: 0.09 expected goals. Soulé, 93rd minute, played in by Dybala: 0.06.

The two goals that turned the match are worth, added together, 0.143. Less than a seventh of a goal.

So: Roma comfortably deserved to win — 3.54 expected goals to 0.77, expected points 2.76 to 0.16 — and won by putting away two balls the model rated as almost nothing, after missing three and a half goals' worth.

What we have to say about ourselves

Here is the part that concerns us, and we write it because it is the only way to be useful.

If Soulé's shot in the 93rd goes half a metre wide, Atalanta leave the Olimpico with a draw. And today we would be writing our fourth consecutive article about a side collecting far more than it produces, and somebody — reasonably — would start wondering whether it is we who are looking at the wrong thing.

Our model was right. But the margin between "was right" and "was wrong again" was one shot in stoppage time. Anyone telling you the numbers delivered their verdict is simplifying: they delivered the correct verdict by the thinnest of margins, and over a single match the margin is always this.

Expected goals work over the distance. They know nothing about the 93rd minute.

Atalanta, now

They lose, and remain the biggest anomaly in Europe.

Six points from 0.90 expected points. A gap of +5.10, still the largest on the continent even after a defeat.

The three-matchday picture is merciless: four goals scored from 1.87 expected, seven conceded from 7.48 given up. Thirteen box entries made, thirty-one conceded.

And the six points stay there, real, on the table. It is exactly what we wrote in the preview and it bears repeating: we are not saying Atalanta are a bad side. We are saying they are winning in a way that cannot be repeated across thirty-eight matchdays, and that when it stops repeating — last night — what happened is what happens.

Roma, meanwhile

Nine points from nine, and nine points from 8.58 expected.

A gap of +0.42: Roma are, alongside Torino, the most honest side in Serie A. There is almost nothing in their nine points that depends on a save or a post. Ten goals scored from 11.45 expected, one conceded from 2.26.

With one caveat, after last night: they are creating enormous volume and few clean chances. With Carnesecchi on song, that volume risks not being enough. For eighty-eight minutes, it was not.

The honest bit

Three matchdays neither condemn Atalanta nor crown Roma. The season is long and September numbers are the noisiest of the year.

But one figure already holds, and it is the territorial one. Forty-eight box entries to six across three matches is neither luck nor finishing: it is where a team manages to take the ball. That stays even when the goals do not go in.

And Atalanta have a problem their six points are hiding. Conceding thirty-one box entries in three matches against thirteen made is the profile of a side under pressure. Until now they had won anyway. Last night, for the first time, they did not.

Check for yourself. In the Meritometro you will find the verdict on every match of this round based on chances rather than results, in the Nerd Zone you can go back through Roma-Atalanta shot by shot, and the preview we published is still online, unedited.