Serie A | Udinese 1-0 Atalanta: Zaniolo inflicts first defeat on La Dea

Nicolò Zaniolo scored his third goal in four games, allowing Udinese to inflict the first Serie A defeat of the season on Atalanta, who had drawn five on the bounce.

La Dea were the only Serie A side unbeaten this season, but had drawn five in a row in this competition, leaving them in ninth place. Marten de Roon, Daniel Maldini, Sead Kolasinac, Giorgio Scalvini and Mitchel Bakker were out of action, but Lazar Samardzic faced his old club and Gianluca Scamacca returned to the starting XI. The Friulani were coming off a midweek 3-1 defeat to Juventus, where Keinan Davis joined Thomas Kristensen on the treatment table.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Zaniolo stung Marco Carnesecchi’s gloves with a powerful strike from distance, while Nicolò Bertola made a decisive tackle as Kamaldeen Sulemana was about to pull the trigger from seven yards.

Carnesecchi got down to parry a long-range Hassane Kamara scorcher, while Atalanta had the ball in the net on 23 minutes with Sulemana volleying in at full stretch, but Davide Zappacosta was offside before putting in the cross.

Udinese took the lead instead, as Jurgen Ekkelenkamp’s dinked pass sent Kamara down the left, he pulled back from the by-line for Zaniolo to sweep in first-time with the inside of the left foot from 12 yards. It was his third goal in the last four games.

It was very nearly 2-0 before half-time, Carnesecchi flying to fingertip a Jesper Karlstrom screamer out of the far top corner from distance.

Kabasele made a decisive challenge to prevent substitute Nikola Krstovic from sweeping in the Davide Zappacosta assist from nine yards.

Vakoun Bayo blasted over from a tricky angle, but Raoul Bellanova thought he had equalised on 81 minutes when hitting a sensational volley on a punched corner, only to be denied by the Arthur Atta goal-line clearance.

Udinese 1-0 Atalanta

Zaniolo 40 (U)