The monotony of “Zenith”, the instability of CSKA and the uncertainty of “Spartacus”: what problems will the leaders of the RPL in the fall

CSKA remains an unstable team that is able to alternate successful matches with failures, while Spartak is experiencing problems in the base zone. The current champion Zenit became straightforward in the attack after the loss of Sebastian Driussi, and in Krasnodar faced difficulties in the process of building a new team. In anticipation of the resumption of the RPL season, RT talks about the problems of Russian top clubs.

Unplayability of Krasnodar

Of all the Russian top clubs, it was the southerners who changed the most in the summer. The team was replenished immediately with eight players. And the key performers of Krasnodar Mauricio Pereira and Charles Cabore said goodbye to the RPL. In addition, Yuri Gazinsky and Victor Klasson received serious injuries.

Thus, in the summer the coaching staff of the “bulls” had to rebuild almost the entire midfield and attack line. To top it all off, perhaps the most famous rookie team Remy Cabella was injured. The club tried to compensate for his loss by signing the experienced Manuel Fernandes, who, like no one else, is able to give the “last pass”.

However, while “Krasnodar” has problems with the completion of attacks. So, Marcus Berg, who joined the team, still did not score a single goal. And in the Champions League, if you do not take the first half of the away confrontation with Porto, the southerners did not distinguish themselves even once.

Krasnodar also has problems in the defense line, which in the summer did not undergo any changes, but did not receive any gain. Krasnodar bought the rights to one of the most promising Russian defenders Yegor Sorokin from Rubin, but left it in Kazan on loan until the end of the season. Thus, at least until January, Musaev will have to do with Alexander Martynovich, Urosh Spaich and Jon Goodni Fiolusson.

Monotony in the attack of "Zenith"

At the end of last season, Petersburgers looked like a team without weaknesses and naturally became champions of Russia. However, by the end of summer, blue-white-blue problems began. In many ways, they were associated with the injury of Sebastian Driussi. Without the Argentine, the St. Petersburg team scored only one goal in three games and failed to hit the goal of “Akhmat” and “Ufa”.

At the same time, Sergei Semak's wards largely returned to the game a year ago, when in the attack it all came down to canopies on Artyom Dziuba. It is no accident that he himself, after a hard victory over Spartak, emphasized that only after the Argentine’s damage did everyone understand how important he was for the team.

But if Dziuba even scores points for performance, then immediately Serdar Azmun, who has almost become the main star of the team, is not yet impressive. Two goals in eight matches and a lot of unrealized moments are clearly not what they expected from the Iranian in the new season.

In addition, one cannot fail to mention Malcolm's injury. The star newcomer of Zenit was damaged almost immediately and, in favorable conditions, it will not return to operation until the end of September. At the same time, fans will demand maximum return from him, given the money spent on him.

Passivity of the defense of “Rostov”

Strange as it may seem, at the beginning of autumn Rostov can hardly be called an unbalanced team with all of its will. Valery Karpin made bold changes and instilled yellow-blue beautiful football with a quick exit from the defense and lightning attacks. Eldor Shomurodov scores in almost every match, Roman Eremenko stamps the assists, Matias Normann “burns out” the support zone, Alexey Ionov moves around the attack front, and Ivelin Popov finds himself mainly where necessary to help partners.

However, perhaps the most vulnerable area of the team is the center of defense. This is largely due to the transition to a tactical arrangement with two central defenders instead of three. In addition, a couple of experienced captain Ragnar Sigurdsson was a young Dmitry Chistyakov, who spends the first season in the RPL. Yes, the pupil of “Zenith” is progressing rapidly, but at the start of the season “Rostov” misses a lot: 11 goals in eight matches. More often, rivals upset only four teams: Ural, Akhmat, Orenburg and Tambov.

Instability CSKA

Like last year, the red and blue are able to hold a vivid match, and then suffer an unexpected defeat from a team inferior in class. The first such failure with the wards of Viktor Goncharenko in the present happened in the opening game of the season in Samara. And in mid-August, CSKA failed to beat the outsider Sochi at home.

Let Goncharenko be engaged in the construction of a new team for the second year, the army team remains a young team that is characterized by instability, which the mentor himself acknowledges. At the same time, red-blue still can not boast the length of the bench, and this only worsens the situation. So, in the already mentioned match with Sochi, Goncharenko simply had no one to release to strengthen the attack except for the nominal opornik Yaki Biyola.

In addition, in the summer the team was covered by an epidemic of injuries, and several football players suffered serious damage at once. If the club still managed to strengthen the line of defense and midfield on the flag of the transfer campaign, then it did not work to take the second striker to help Fedor Chalov.

The indispensability of the leaders of Lokomotiv

At first glance, the “railroad” look almost the most balanced team of the championship. At the gates of Loko, Marinato Guillerme plays the “first number”. In defense, experienced and well-established masters are assembled. Grzegorz Krychowiak and Dmitry Barinov look great in the reference zone, and in the attack the brothers Miranchuk and Fedor Smolov create the necessary chemistry.

However, despite the point strengthening, in the center of the field the team feels a clear understatement. Of course, as long as all the leaders remain in the ranks, Semin can be calm.

But should Barinov or Krykhovyak earn a disqualification or get injured, the coaching staff will have to solve a difficult task, because there are simply no other defenders at the disposal of Semin, except for Alexander Kolomeytsev, who has not played for almost a year and a half due to health problems.

In addition, Rifat Zhemaletdinov looks like a weak link in the team, who on the right is not as good at building as Miranchuki, but often does not work on defense. It is possible that in the upcoming meetings, Semin will try to replace Rifat with star recruit João Mariou.

Two dilemmas of Spartak

Red and white, like Krasnodar, continue the process of building a new team with a large number of newcomers, and the main positions that Oleg Kononov has to work on are the attack line and the reference zone. In the first case, the coach needs to make a choice between Andre Schürrle and Esekiel Ponce. At the same time, the German may well play both under the attacker and on the left flank. But there are simply no other pure forwards in the team, if you do not consider Jordan Larsson for this role.

But in the center of the field at the coaching staff with the arrival of Alex Kral, finally, there was a choice. Now Kononov has four oporniks at his disposal. In addition to the Czech, this is Roman Zobnin, Ayaz Guliyev and the young Nail Umyarov. The young Czech will come out with a high degree of probability, otherwise he would hardly have paid € 12 million for him. Of the other three, Zobnin has the best chance of appearing from the first minutes, but Roman may well shift to the left flank, where he has already played several times. Then a pair of Kralu in the center will be Guliyev or Umyarov.