Krykhovyak’s sixth goal, Lunev’s mistake and two canceled goals: Lokomotiv turned out to be stronger than Zenith

Murilo in midfield and the absence of Alexei Miranchuk

The match between Lokomotiv and Zenit not only gave the fans a bright fight until the last seconds with two goals canceled, but also once again showed the champion character of the railway workers, because the wards of Yuri Syomin, despite all personnel problems, beat a direct competitor, and most importantly - did it on business.

Before the match, there were reports of the return of Alexei Miranchuk, but the hopes of the red-green fans did not come true. Midfielder was not only on the field, but also in the application.

Thus, the railway workers in the confrontation with a direct competitor again were left without their main creative football players, but, it seems, did not become weaker. However, the red-green ones are now largely kept together in the middle of the field: Dmitry Barinov - Grzegorz Krychowiak.

They don’t have any replacements today, but Semin figured out how to help his midfielders and threw Murilo, the central defender, to help them. As a result, this move, like in the match with Bayer, helped Loko.

In the match against Zenit, the presence of an additional footballer in the base zone allowed the railway workers to create a numerical superiority in this zone. The guests were forced, like Bayer two weeks earlier, to move to the flanks and bombard the opponent's penalty box with numerous innings. Here are just the high central defenders of the hosts of Vedran Chorluk with Benedict Hövedes held another outstanding match and practically did not allow Artyom Dziube to do anything.

Indefatigable Kryhovyak and impenetrable defense

Barinov and Krykhovyak, as usual, showed a high class and gnawed everything in the middle of the field. At the same time, both demonstrate incredible physical readiness. This is especially true of the Pole. An indicative moment: in the 85th minute, Grzegorz pulled up near his own penalty area for Robert Mac who had just replaced, took the ball from him, dragged him forward and got his legs from Yaroslav Rakitsy.

But Krykhovyak is good not only in destruction, but also in creation. Most of the team’s attacks go through it. Ex-PSG midfielder competently keeps the pace of the game in timely transfers and has sufficient equipment in order not to slow down the attack.

And most importantly, Grzegorz began to score. The goal in the match against Zenit became the fifth in the RPL for the Pole and the sixth in all tournaments. Fantastic performance for a football player who has not scored more than four goals in a season before. However, here it is worth noting another mistake by Andrei Lunev. The goalkeeper clearly could save the team in this episode, but could not cope. Unfortunately, in the game of the goalkeeper, who until recently had been predicted to replace Igor Akinfeev in the national team, a crisis was clearly outlined.

The Invisible Azmun and the useless moves of Semak

However, the unsuccessful match was held not only by Lunev, but also the entire Zenit. The young coach Sergei Semak never figured out how to crack the Lokomotiv defensive ranks. And after a missed ball, Petersburgers were forced to go forward. At this point, Semak began to make replacements.

At first, Daler Kuzyaev came out instead of the absolutely inert Serdar Azmun. The actions of the Iranian should be said separately. It was not clear to the end whether he would enter the field due to an injury received in the match with Lyon, but the Iranian was in the starting lineup. However, the attacker simply disappeared into the green grass of the Russian Railways Arena and was completely useless. On the one hand, the injury affected. On the other hand, rivals closely watched Azmun.

After the release of Kuzyaev, it seemed that Zenit received the long-awaited advantage in the center of the field, but this feeling was misleading. The railway workers simply gave the ball away to the guests and calmly defended themselves, while not forgetting the counterattacks. There were almost no moments at the gates of Marinato Guillerme.

Already in the end, Alex Sutormin and Mack entered the game at Zenit, and the latter managed to equalize in the time added by the referee. But the judge canceled the goal, and there was really a violation of the rules - as in the moment with the goal of Fedor Smolov in the first half.

In this way, Lokomotiv scored three points in a match with its most important opponent without a number of leaders, while Semin this time outplayed Semak tactically and defeated Zenit for the second time in a row.