Atalanta's Argentine midfielder Alejandro Gomez (10) celebrates with teammates after scoring against Roma during yesterday's Serie A match in Rome. (AFP)

AFP
Roma

Shell-shocked Roma’s title hopes were kept in check by a chastening 2-0 home defeat to Atalanta yesterday that has piled further pressure on the club’s French coach Rudi Garcia.
Roma were firmly in the title hunt, comfortably in fourth place and three points behind leaders Inter Milan, going into their first league game since a humiliating 6-1 defeat to Barcelona in the Champions League on Tuesday.
But the Serie A hopefuls, still missing forwards Gervinho and Mohamed Salah, looked uninterested on their way to a third defeat of the campaign that kept them in fourth but now in danger of seeing their gap on leaders Inter grow to six points.
The hosts showed plenty of enterprise in a promising first half but paid for several misses when Alejandro Gomez struck and German Denis doubled Atalanta’s lead from the spot at the death.  
Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic got a sniff on 18 minutes when his angled strike brought a fine one-handed save from Marco Sportiello in the Atalanta goal.
Pjanic was in the thick of it again just after the half hour when Edin Dzeko first-timed his chip from just inside the area only to see it flash over with Sportiello at full stretch.
Roma were pressing and, after the ball fell kindly to Juan Iturbe outside the area, the Argentinian’s drive from 35 yards inched just over Sportiello’s crossbar.
Roma looked to be in command but the Stadio Olimpico was stunned into silence five minutes before the interval when French left-back Lucas Digne gave possession away cheaply.
Digne’s blind effort to clear up the right flank instead gifted possession to Alejandro Gomez, whose drive from 35 yards out beat Morgan De Sanctis at the ‘keeper’s far top corner.
Pjanic came close to levelling eight minutes after the restart only to see his glancing header from a corner cleared off the line by Luca Cigarini.
But a confident Atalanta were soon in command, and De Sanctis had to be at his best on the hour mark to stop Maxi Moralez on a one-on-one after the Argentinian had been sent through by Radja Nainggolan’s mistimed header.
Garcia replaced Iago Falque with reserve team player Umar Sadiq two minutes later, while right-back Alessandro Florenzi made way for Maicon on 70
minutes.
But it was to get even worse for Roma after the big Brazilian, 10 minutes after his arrival, saw red after a mistimed challenge on Gomez inside the area.
German Denis stepped up to beat De Sanctis from the penalty spot to double Atalanta’s lead on 82 minutes.
Even after Guglielmo Stendardo and Alberto Grassi saw red in the dying minutes for second bookable offences respectively to leave the visitors with nine men, it did little to dampen Atalanta’s post-match celebrations.
Roma remain three points behind Inter but could be six adrift if the Nerazzurri upset the form book to beat in-form Napoli, in second two points adrift, today.
Roma’s loss means AC Milan remain fifth, only four points further back, after their 4-1 drubbing of Sampdoria on Saturday.
M’Baye Niang put the nightmare of the Paris terror attacks firmly behind him with two goals and an assist as Milan crushed a sorry Sampdoria at the San Siro.
Niang admitted last week the events of the past fortnight had left him worried for the safety of family and friends in and around the French capital.
But the 20-year-old from the Paris suburbs produced a confident performance for the Rossoneri, first delivering for Giacomo Bonaventura’s opener on 16 minutes and then beating Emiliano Viviano from the spot after the Milan winger had been hauled down in the area seven minutes before the interval.
Niang secured Milan’s seventh win of the campaign when he fired under Viviano four minutes after the restart after the ‘keeper’s fluffed clearance.
When he was replaced by Luiz Adriano 15 minutes from the whistle it took the Brazilian just four minutes to find the net after volleying Alessio Cerci’s intelligent cross past Viviano.
The only blot on Milan’s copybook was Gianluigi Donnarumma’s failure to stop Luis Muriel from the spot after Andrea Pioli had tugged on Eder in the area in the closing minutes.  
Earlier, Torino moved up to seventh place with a 2-0 home win over Bologna thanks to second-half goals from Andrea Belotti and Giuseppe Vives.