BERGAMO, Italy (Reuters) – Atalanta spurned a chance from the penalty spot to beat Torino on Saturday, but manager Gian Piero Gasperini criticised other refereeing decisions which he believes cost his side an important win in Serie A.
Torino came away from Bergamo with a 1-1 draw after Mateo Retegui had his second half penalty saved, and Gasperini was unimpressed with the visitors lack of attacking effort.
“It would be hard to find an opponent in the league who managed to do so little, even though they are a good team,” Gasperini told reporters.
“The only mistake we made was the error on their headed goal. Then, getting past the Torino defence is not that easy, we were missing something.”
Gasperini was also unimpressed with decisions which he feels went against his team, such as a Raoul Bellanova goal disallowed for handball and he also felt they should have had another penalty.
“There are episodes such as the penalty not given and Bellanova’s goal, they weigh because they are VAR decisions,” Gasperini said.
“Today more than a little was taken from us. We need to understand who referees football matches, whether it is the one on the pitch or the one at the VAR.
“We need to focus on VAR because who referees on the field no longer counts for anything.”
Atalanta were without injured forward Ademola Lookman and had to replace keeper Marco Carnesecchi following the pre-match warm-up. However, Gianluca Scamacca made his first appearance of the season, coming on as a late substitute.
The striker, who ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in a pre-season friendly, appeared to struggle after replacing Retegui with five minutes remaining.
“Scamacca unfortunately had to stop. After a minute he had a quadriceps problem, a shame because he has been doing tests and trials for several weeks,” Gasperini said.
“Let’s hope it’s not something that can stop him.”
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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