I was thinking the same thing, when Inter Milan played a draw with Parma, I thought Atalanta may take advantage of the opportunity to close the points gap with Inter Milan. 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, they were once at the top of the league, but they are currently battling to remain among the top four clubs. Bologna will overtake them if they defeat Napoli today.
I also noticed that Atalanta is not going through a good moment after the elimination from the Champions League.
As if the desire to play and win had diminished
It can happen in my opinion when there is no stimulus
I see Atalanta has experienced a decline before being eliminated from the Champions, not a decline but they Atalanta can't keep winning every match and they Atalanta also can't keep up with Serie A like Inter did but of course this is quite different for both clubs but what Gesperini did with Atalanta is an improvement even though they haven't been able to win Serie A but I respect what they did with the existing container to be able to be above Milan Juventus and Roma last season, but now they are not performing anymore and it seems they can drop from the top 5 without ever winning in the last 3 matches it is very painful and I think now Atalanta has really lost its way and in the next two matches they will meet strong teams like Bologna and also Milan.
It seems that after the situation of Gesperini spraying his players in the media, now the players are starting to lose their confidence, and currently there is not a single player who stands out in the Atalanta team including the top scorer Retegui, in my opinion this is just a small conflict in this team which is very far from what they used to play with a high goal target but in the last 3 matches they have not scored a single goal, this is dangerous for them in the current standings.