The clear chances have gone
Charles De Ketelaere has made ten key passes this season and only one of them has become a clear chance. That is not a criticism of him so much as a description of what the attack around him can currently offer.
Five games in, Atalanta are eleventh in Serie A after consecutive defeats, at home to Cagliari and away at Juventus, and mid-table in September is not a crisis on its own. What sits behind it is stranger, because this was one of the most dangerous sides in the league last season, third for the clear openings that decide matches, and they now make fewer of them than anyone in Serie A.
It is not the strikers
The natural suspect when the goals dry up is the finishing, and here it does not hold. Atalanta are 13th in Serie A for turning shots into goals, and the forwards are doing their share with what reaches them. Gianluca Scamacca has put four of his six shots on target, and Nikola Krstović has scored inside limited minutes.
What has changed is the kind of ball arriving. Samardžić leads the squad for shots and De Ketelaere for key passes, and between the two of them and everyone else the side has produced almost nothing a striker would call a clear sight of goal.
What they stopped doing
Atalanta's reputation was built on winning the ball high and attacking before a defence had set itself, and that is the part of their game that has fallen furthest. They were 7th in Serie A for tackles and interceptions last season and sit 17th now, so far fewer of their attacks begin with an opponent out of position, which is the situation that produces a clear chance more reliably than any other.
The way they use the ball has changed with it. Atalanta played more accurate long balls than pretty much everyone last season and are 16th for them now, while still passing as often as almost anyone, so this is a team working patiently through short passes rather than going quickly.
The fair objection is the sample, because five games is short and a run of opponents content to sit deep would suppress clear chances without anything underneath having moved. The trouble with that reading is that a side choosing control would not also have stopped winning the ball back, and it is the two together that make this look like something lost rather than something traded.