Since Atalanta got eliminated from the Champions League, they dropped form and have lost three games in a row, losing against Inter Milan, Fiorentina, and now Lazio, they failed to learn from their mistakes and return to their winning ways.
However, in the game against Lazio, if Atalanta did not win, I wasn't expecting them to lose because Lazio has never been in good form recently, but they delivered surprise results to defeat Atalanta by a narrow win. I am still surprised by Atalanta's performance this season,
You observed well, after Atalanta lost the champions League knockouts they also knocked themselves from wining on the Italian Serie A, the only time they did well after the knockout was the first three, against Empoli and Juventus, let me exclude Venezia because up till now I never understood why Atalanta could not win people that gave themselves up for winning because they had much opening for Atalanta but Retegui, Lookman and De Ketelaere who are the front runners of Atalanta never had any score, but for Fiorentina and Lazio to be wining them 1:0 to 1:0 can obviously mean Atalanta are not the same. Is unfortunate that Atalanta is also on all the Serie A sub leagues but could not have one. Bologna is a the team the coach is good and they might also make themselves the fourth club to win Atalanta on the day.
Atalanta did not had a chance to win the league anyways, if they won all three, that would be nine more points and they are at 58 points right now, if they had 9 more points that would be 67 points and nearly where Inter is, and Inter has 68 points, so there would be only one gap. So even in a scenario where they won all, they are still not at the top, and when Napoli wins, that would mean even Napoli has the same points as them.
Atalanta needed a perfect record on all those games to be even in the discussion, let alone be champions. If you are that far away, then it would be unfair to consider them a title contender. What they have going for them right now is the fourth place, if they fail to do better, Bologna is right there.