Stanislav Cherchesov named the expanded composition of the Russian national football team, which will prepare for the control meeting with Moldova, as well as for the decisive League of Nations matches with Turkey and Serbia.
One of the most discussed in this regard was the return to the ranks of the national team of Anton Zabolotny.
In the last rounds, the Sochi striker managed to impress many skeptics and score several important goals, which allowed his team to maintain a place in the top five and continue the struggle for European cups.
The call of Zabolotny to the national team became known a day before the official announcement of the squad.
This was announced by the coach of the national team, noting that for several weeks he had been closely watching the leader of the attacks, Sochi.
“We noticed two weeks ago that Zabolotny was scoring.
Will he be on tomorrow's list?
Yes, "- said Cherchesov on the air of" Match TV ".
Thus, the almost two-year period of Zabolotny's absence from the national team will officially end soon.
He last appeared in the national team jersey on November 20, 2018.
Then he spent 21 minutes in the League of Nations match with Sweden, but did not score with effective actions.
He made a total of nine international appearances and chalked up one goal and two assists.
On the one hand, Zabolotny's challenge can be called logical.
In four October RPL matches, he scored three goals and gave an assist.
At the same time, many other Russian attackers are going through a difficult period in the national championship.
This is largely due to the fact that they are forced to play on two fronts and regularly enter the field not only in the national championship, but also in European competitions.
Sochi is deprived of the need to regularly hold meetings in two days on the third.
In this regard, Zenit striker Artyom Dzyuba suffered more than others.
He is already experiencing problems with the "physics" that prevent him from being on the field for 90 minutes.
Dziuba was first substituted during the break of the Champions League match with Borussia, and then was not included in the application for the game with Khimki.
As it became known, the reason for this was "muscle overload".
Lokomotiv forward Fyodor Smolov is regularly included in the squad, but he is not happy with his performance.
The last time he scored at the end of September in a meeting with CSKA Moscow, after which he did not score in five games in a row, including two matches in the Champions League.
Nikolay Komlichenko and Fyodor Chalov are not in the best condition, who scored three goals for two in the current championship, two of which were from a penalty spot.
Against their background, Alexander Sobolev looked decent, but the meniscus injury and subsequent recovery knocked him out of a rut a little.
In general, the current situation clearly demonstrates what a meager choice Cherchesov has as a striker.
With the exception of the aforementioned players, the head coach can only count on Evgeny Lutsenko and Alexander Kokorin, but the former continues to heal a thigh injury and has not appeared on the field since September 20, and the latter is not happy with his performance.
The promising Ivan Ignatiev has not yet revealed himself in Rubin, and Georgy Melkadze cannot boast of stability in Akhmat.
In this regard, Zabolotny's challenge rather indicates the general difficult situation in the Russian national team, rather than the progress of the striker himself.
Despite the praise from Cherchesov, Anton's statistics in the national championship can hardly be considered impressive.
Yes, there are three goals in his track record, but two of them fell on the confrontation with Rostov in the 10th round.
On that day, the striker did almost everything, as evidenced by both his gorgeous scissors goal and the incredibly accurate “shot” from outside the penalty area after perfect ball handling.
Subsequently, he scored points for performance only in one game - with Lokomotiv.
First, he made Marinato Guilherme surrender with a spectacular headbutt, and then he opened up great and played a wall with Nikita Burmistrov.
It should be noted that the pass was not very successful, and the rebound helped the Sochi midfielder to distinguish himself.
The extended statistics also do not favor Zabolotny.
So, according to the indicator of expected goals (xG), according to the calculations of the portal Understat, he is in seventh place among Russian forwards of the RPL (2.77).
According to this indicator, he is inferior not only to Dzyuba (4.32) and Smolov (4.12), but also to other competitors.
More often, Ilyin, Chalov, Ignatiev and Melkadze found themselves in dangerous situations.
Thus, they opened much better and created danger at the opponent's goal.
As for the expected programs, the situation here is even more deplorable.
Zabolotny very rarely takes his partners to the striking position, which is confirmed by the extremely low xA coefficient of 0.44.
On this list, he is only 49th in the league among all forwards, and the difference between him and the leaders looks catastrophic.
For comparison, for Dziuba this figure is 3.03, and for his closest pursuers - Chalov and Sobolev - 1.89 and 1.86, respectively.
All this may indicate that in a more successful period Cherchesov would hardly have turned to Zabolotny's services, but at the moment his challenge can be considered logical.
He is able to replace one of the tired partners and play at least with Moldova.
In the current conditions, such friendly matches can hardly be considered mandatory, and the level of the opponent allows you to try the nearest reserve.
In case of a successful performance, Anton can prove himself in front of a mentor and achieve the right to appear in the League of Nations game, where his ability to play with his head will be useful.
In this regard, much will depend on the decision of the head coach.
Over the past few weeks, Cherchesov has received a solid portion of criticism for his decision to use Dziuba in all three previous matches of the national team.
As a result, Artyom spent a total of 225 minutes on the field and returned to the club noticeably tired.
If this time the specialist is less conservative, then Zabolotny will have a chance to prove himself, and the team leaders will have the opportunity to recuperate.