Sivasakthi Narayanan is a true poacher in the making for India. The 21-year-old striker was groomed by Raman Vijayan — a great striker himself — before then being scouted by Bengaluru FC; he is now marking his footprints in the Indian Super League, the top tier of India. In this tactical analysis in form of a scout report, we will analyse the qualities of the striker and how he’s been performing so far along with his tactics.
The time of writing the piece will differ from the time you are reading the piece, hence there might be mild variations in the numbers when you are reading the piece. All visualisations used in this scout report include strikers who’ve played more than 400 minutes. For ease of identification, Sivasakthi will be marked yellow in all the plots.
Player Overview
The 21-year-old striker hailing from the southern part of India has all the right potential to lead India’s attack in the upcoming future. He’s gaining brilliant experience and knowledge by playing alongside Roy Krishna and Sunil Chhetri in the Indian Super League. The pizza plot shows an overall profile of the player this season.
We can draw basic conclusions from the plot, he’s good in terms of converting his chances and is highly present inside the box. He’s also dangerous with his passes while his defensive work rate is good. It’s important to understand that the player is yet to cement his position as a starter. By just playing 47% of his available minutes, he has a goal participation of 25% for Bengaluru in the ISL and by playing just 35% of his total available minutes, he had a goal participation of 36% for Bengaluru in the Durand Cup.
The heatmap shows how he’s present everywhere in the attacking third. The reason behind this is he constantly switches from the main striker to second striker in the game and is hence given the freedom to move around to help the game flow in the final third.
We will further analyse his qualities and tactics in the upcoming sessions of this tactical analysis piece and also try to identify the areas that the player if improved on could become even more threatening.
Poacher traits
It’s important to note that Sivasakthi has high touches inside the opponents’ penalty area, indicating that the player is there when he needs to be.
In the scatter plot, we can spot him in the top right corner, the box for the elite which consists only of players who’ve performed above average. We can see he’s the fourth highest in terms of touches in the opponent’s box with a per 90 value of 4.24, while he averages 2.48 shots per 90. His xG is also very impressive with 0.36 per 90. This shows that the player is a potential threat, he’s inside the box taking touches and is also attempting shots causing damage to the opponents.
Let’s further look into his xG shot map of his from all his competition to analyse his shots and his shot value.
From the xG map, we can see how the majority of his shots come from in and around the six-yard box. It’s also important to note that the player has been able to score goals from outside the box, but he’s predominantly active around the six-yard box trying to finish off chances.
Sivasakthi, being technically strong, has many ways to drive into the penalty area. You can very often see him beat defenders with his pace and drive into the penalty area himself. At times, he loves to work the ball under his foot and attempt dribbles inside the penalty area to take down players, but something that’ll stand out is his off-the-ball runs when in possession.
In this match situation depicted, we can see that he’s making a diagonal run attacking the box. While the run into the box may seem a bit complicated to meet by the passer, it’s vital to notice the impact of his run. He’s dragging the full-back along with him and is also causing possible confusion to the centre-back. This run has also created a huge space for their left-back to exploit. These runs are important in giving options and disturbing the balance of the opponent’s defence.
His sense of space is also very interesting and is crucial once inside the penalty area.
The match situation above is a goal move by Bengaluru against Mumbai City. We can see on expecting a pass into the six-yard box Sivasakthi is making a run from the blindspot of the defender into the space.
On noticing his run, both the fullback and the centre-back are dragged along with him into the box and now this run creates space for another attacker to finish a possible cut-back pass from the passer. All these traits make Sivasakthi a huge asset. He’s vital in creating space for others, he’s crucial in counterattacks and is also able to score goals — a complete poacher once inside the box.
Passing and Progression in the final third
Before the start of this session, let’s try to get an understanding of how threatening his passes are. We’ll look at a scatter plot with smart passes and through passes, the two closest metrics to analyse a player’s creativity with passing.
In this scatter plot, the size of the circle corresponds to the number of passes into the penalty area per 90. Luna is miles apart in this metric because of the unique role that he plays for Kerala Blasters. Excluding him, when we look at the other players, Sivasakthi performs above average in both metrics and is, again, in the elite box. His circle is comparatively small as the player loves to carry the ball inside the penalty area rather than attempt passes to the penalty area.
One can easily notice his carries into the penalty area and how distributed they are, making him unpredictable. Wherever in possession, Sivasakthi as and when he finds space, looks to dribble into space and by doing this he attracts defenders which as a result creates space for others.
Coming back to passing, he prefers to play quickly and always has an eye for spaces and he also looks to attack the penalty area whenever possible.
The above is a first-time pass attempt by Sivasakthi. He has just received the pass from Chhetri in the middle and looks to exploit the space first time by providing a through pass. While he could have received and taken on the defender in a 1v1 situation, he was wise enough to choose the best and the quickest way to the goal.
Out of all the progressive passes the player has played this season, one can notice a majority of these passes are into the penalty area explaining the attacking mindset that he possesses. Another important mindset the player possesses is not to kill moves — he likes the game to keep flowing. This trait of his has helped him improve his decision-making skills in the final third.
In the match image, we can see he has dropped low to support in progression, and we can notice how he looks to play first time to Chhetri without holding the play and making the progression quicker instead of attempting a back pass and killing the flow. He has also dragged a centre-back along with him making his run a very effective one and by making a right pass decision he has brought the best out of the move.
Defensive duties
From the pizza plot in the player profile section, we noticed that he’s active in terms of involvement in the defensive duels explaining his work rate. Although his success percentage seems average, his willingness to fight for the ball is shown in his numbers.
From his high regains, we can see a mixture of dangerous recoveries and counterpressing recoveries. He has attempted as many as eight counterpressing recoveries this season.
His work rate does not just end there. Most of the time, he’s seen in the defending third helping the team. It could be Bengaluru’s tactics to commit an extra person to defend as Sivasakthi using his tremendous pace can rejoin the attack quickly.
The match image is an example of my previous statement. Here we can see him rushing to close down the receiver to put him under pressure when he receives the ball. As I mentioned earlier this could be their tactics but the work rate is what is to be appreciated here. While defending is of secondary importance for a striker, Sivasakthi tries to give his best to benefit the team without the ball.
Conclusion
Sivasakthi still has years of football ahead of him and with the right exposure, he’s sure to become a ruthless weapon. Technically strong at the moment, the player needs more experience to get confident with his game and to perfect execution. He has a strong mentality and isn’t afraid to make mistakes which helps him stand out among other youngsters in the country. India and Bengaluru FC both have a gem in their hands who’ll soon be dominating Indian football.
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