The rising Eagle Simy: How he silently took over the Serie A goalscoring charts – scout report

With a long career in Europe and many ups and downs the 28-year-old Simeon Nwankwo – Simy finally got his chance to shine in the last couple of seasons with Crotone.

Coming from Portugal in 2016, the striker had a difficult start to his spell in Italy up until last season when he was one of the main reasons for the Pythagoreans’ promotion to Serie A, scoring 20 goals and assisting three more.

While his team is on the verge of returning to the second tier, showing extremely poor results in defence, Simy is their key player in attack, showing quality that is overshadowed by the relegation drama.

With his 17 goals, the Nigerian currently sits fourth in the league’s goalscoring charts, right next to Juventus Cristiano Ronaldo (25), Inters Romelu Lukaku (21) and Atalantas Luis Muriel (18).

This scout report in the form of tactical analysis examines what makes Simy that successful in such an unfortunate period for Crotone and what is his role in their tactics.

Crotone’s performance and Simy’s importance 

The reason for Crotone’s downfall this season is their defensive performance. The lack of defensive organisation and awareness often throws their attacking efforts to waste and results in constantly losing points. The team currently sit last in the table with barely 15 points and 80 conceded goals.

They cannot keep their opponents away from the goal and the results are catastrophic. Although they are not the worst side in terms of scored goals, their defensive vulnerability and the lack of adequate support by the advanced players made them an easy target for their opponents.

The team struggle in defending set-pieces but also commit many individual errors against skilful players. They often fail in their positioning and it is easy for the opposition to break their unsettled structure and expose them with though balls.

They accept the play in their own half and rarely get the chance to create quality attacks. Most of their successful efforts in the advanced areas are a result of both attackers’ Simy and Junior Messias movement in front of the goal.

Although both of them often need to drop very deep to pick up the ball in Crotone’s most used 5-3-2/3-5-2 formation, they do manage to move around the box successfully with Messias providing more threat from outside the penalty area, while Simy moves into it.

Simy

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