Atalanta furious over disturbances ahead C/L clash with United
Atalanta players have been left furious after the fire alarm at their five-star Radisson hotel went off SIX times in the middle of the night, disrupting their preparation for tonight’s Champions League tie against Manchester United.
The Serie A side travelled to the UK on Tuesday and stayed in The Edwardian Manchester overnight ahead of today’s game, but it appears they were woken multiple times by the hotel’s alarm system
According to another guest, the alarm was set off at 4:51am, 5:00am, 5:36am, 6:11am, 6:31am and 7:13am, meaning the players are likely to have had very little sleep since before 5am.
The wife of Atalanta midfielder Ruslan Malinovskyi also took to Instagram to complain about the situation. Roksana wrote: ‘I don’t think it was a casual incident. Do you think it’s just a [coincidence]? I don’t think so.
‘Such a warm welcome from local people is terrible. I hope our fans will support our players and, perhaps, the same thing will happen in a hotel in Italy.’
Manchester United travel to Bergamo next month for the return fixture away at Atalanta on November 2.
It is currently unclear as to the reason for the regular overnight alarms, but there are previous examples of foul play at opponents’ hotels in the build-up to big matches.
Fireworks are often set off in the middle of the night outside hotels, and at the 2018 World Cup the Sweden team were evacuated from their hotel before they lost in the quarter-final to England, because of an overnight fire alarm.
In fact, Manchester United have previously been on the end of a fire alarm prank, ahead of their 2-1 defeat away at Wolves in 2019.
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The players were twice disrupted during their mid-afternoon nap by the loud noise at the £85-a-night four-star Mount Hotel Country Manor, in Tettenhall, near Wolverhampto