Looking at the beginning of the season until the middle of the season, I actually think they are still very good, it's just that Atletico experienced obstacles at the end of the season and something like this is not something that is strange for Atletico because almost every season their performance is like that where they are sometimes always enthusiastic in the middle of the season but can't create a good situation in the other half of the season.
We can see that last season their half of the season was very bad but the end of the season they did very well but this season is the opposite of the previous season.
Simeone also seems to have returned to the factory settings in terms of schemes where the attractive game he played at the beginning of this season is not being done now where now they rely more on the bus parking scheme as an alternative for them in carrying out attacks which makes their situation not too good. They are currently losing momentum but the season is still going on, hopefully there will be something good to be able to pull them back into competitive competition.
If you have been watching Atletico Madrid for so long, you might very familiar with their pattern. They always performed like they're wiling to win the title, then become inconsistent at the mid season. In the end lost the title race. That's why finishing at the 3rd/2nd would be their best achievement so far.
They couldn't win the league. The problem was they lead league many times, then finshed below Madrid/Barcelona. It's enough to judge how they won't compete for the title this season. Even if they have only three points gap, they still need miracle to win title.
Their poor mentality means that they are always the third club in terms of probability of winning because they are never bigger than Barcelona or Madrid in terms of probability due to their poor mentality when it comes to competition.
So that by looking at it, Atletico remains the same where they are only able to be entertainers but cannot reach the end to compete in the standings let alone for the trophy. This season especially for the start of the season they did very well even I saw something different with the arrival of several new players like Julian and Sorloth in attack making the quality of their attacks more attractive.
But because of the bad mentality, Simeone's scheme has changed back to the previous one where they just parked the bus even though on some occasions it was quite good but to make them champions this kind of scheme is not enough because competition needs more than this kind of scheme.