Atalanta coach Gasperini frustrated with decisions after Supercoppa defeat

Atalanta lost 2-0 in Riyadh as Denzel Dumfries scored twice on Thursday night.

"It is not easy to create chances against Inter, but the game changed with that absurd goal on a non-existent corner,” said Gasperini afterwards.

“It was not a corner, Stefan de Vrij was offside and standing in front of the goalkeeper, plus there was a very obvious Dumfries foul on Giorgio Scalvini, pushing him with two hands.

“This was Italy exporting a bad version of VAR, one that spent seven minutes checking for a Charles De Ketelaere offside, but did not see any of these three clear situations.”

He added, “We did what we wanted to do.

“At times we fell into the Inter trap and lost the ball cheaply, but they are a great team and we closed the gap on them. I had to take this opportunity to give players a start, as Nicolò Zaniolo hadn’t started yet this season and Lazar Samardzic only a couple of times.

“We cannot always start De Ketelaere and Lookman in every game, that becomes a problem. The issue here is you always ask me why these players aren’t starting, then when I do play them you ask why the others aren’t playing. You cannot get out of this mentality.

“I played internationals, not youth players, not reserves. These are all members of the Atalanta squad. Raoul Bellanova did not play because he has a knee injury.”