Hellas Verona take on Crotone in Serie A on Sunday with the visitors looking to move off the foot of the table with a victory.

Verona, meanwhile, are currently occupying a top-half position once again, having impressively finished ninth in their first season back in Serie A last season.

Match preview

Indeed, Ivan Juric has performed sterling work at Verona since taking over in June 2019, guiding his side to 49 points last season, which is on course for being surpassed this campaign after they earned 24 points in the opening 16 matches.

After an excellent start, though, his side have understandably dropped off in recent weeks, winning only one of their last five matches.

Juric may have been disappointed with his side's 1-1 draw at Torino on Wednesday given that Verona have twice as many points on the board as the struggling Turin-based outfit, but he will be hoping that they can put things right against Serie A's bottom-placed club Crotone on Sunday.

Juric will certainly be hoping his compatriot and former Blackburn Rovers striker Nikola Kalinic improves soon, with the 33-year-old failing to get off the mark in Serie A this season, but the former Genoa boss can take major comfort from the fact that his side have the joint-best defensive record in the league so far this season.

Crotone, meanwhile, are competing in Serie A for only the fourth season in the club's history, having first done so in the 2016-17 campaign, when they narrowly survived relegation after finishing 17th.

Giovanni Stroppa, who guided the club to promotion last season, would bite your hands off for a repeat of that, with Crotone currently three points behind 17th-placed Torino.

After two entertaining defeats against title contenders Inter Milan and Roma in the past week, Stroppa will be grateful to have a forthcoming fixture against a side which he will be making sure his players believe they can beat in the shape of Verona. However, as their worst defensive record in the division attests, Crotone must defend much better in order to have a chance of winning the game.

His side certainly pack a punch going the other way, though, having taken a 2-0 lead against Inter before succumbing to defeat and scoring once against Roma in a 3-1 defeat, but his attacking players may find things tougher against Verona's mean and organised back line.

Hellas Verona Serie A form: WLDLWD

Crotone Serie A form: WDLWLL

Team News

Verona are without Andrea Favilli, Marco Benassi, Miguel Veloso, Ronaldo Vieira, Pawel Dawidowicz and Darko Lazovic due to injury.

Giangiacomo Magnani is likely to come into the defence in place of Dawidowicz.

Crotone, meanwhile, will not have Luca Cigarini or Ahmad Benali available for the trip to Verona due to injury.

Junior Messias is likely to lead the line having started every league game this season and top scored for Stroppa's side in the process with five goals.

Hellas Verona possible starting lineup:
Silvestri; Magnani, Gunter, Ceccherini; Faraoni, Tameze, Veloso, Dimarco; Barak, Zaccagni; Kalinic

Crotone possible starting lineup:
Cordaz; Magallan, Golemic, Cuomo; Pereira, Molina, Zanellato, Eduardo, Reca; Messias, Nwankwo

We say: Hellas Verona 2-1 Crotone

With Verona in good form this season, we can envisage them getting back to winning ways against a leaky Crotone outfit.

The visitors have shown their attacking potency in recent matches, though, so it would be little surprise to see them scoring past a strong Verona defence.

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