Atletico Madrid has the potential to maintain its position as last season to target third position. Because 1 and 2 are still ideal positions for Real Madrid and Barcelona. If you look at Atletico Madrid's ambitions last season, they didn't just stumble, but they were too confident and didn't realize that players who couldn't control their emotions only had a bad impact on the team's performance.
Do you mean Atletico Madrid only has a chance to finish in 3rd place this season? 
Dude, don't judge this team is weak because they didn't buy many top players during the transfer window. I assume Atletico Madrid even has a chance to win the La Liga title this season. Although their defense isn't really convincing, they have good players on midfield and attacking lines. Simeone is very popular with his defensive strategy, he knows well how to optimize the strength of Atletico defense line. Anyway, the current performance of Atletico Madrid looks quite impressive, they always win in pre-season matches. Although it can't guarantee how Atletico plays in real competition, but it simply shows us that they are strong enough and ready to compete for the titles.