"The work front is still big": Krasnodar lost the first match under the leadership of Goncharenko

The debut of Viktor Goncharenko as head coach of Krasnodar promised to be one of the main events of the 25th round of the Russian championship.

The former coach of CSKA Moscow took over the new team only on April 6, and five days later he was forced to go through a difficult test with him.

The Bulls had an away match with Arsenal, the loss of points in which could not only destroy the chances of getting into the European cups.

Since February, the team won only one victory in nine meetings and managed to fly out of the National Cup and the Europa League, and another failure could drive them into a deep psychological hole.

Surely many expected that Goncharenko would decide to shake up the squad in order to cheer up his charges, but he limited himself to minimal changes.

In the midfield, Viktor Klasson, who had gone through yellow cards, was replaced by Aleksey Ionov, and Dmitry Stotsky, who is well known to the Belarusian specialist in Ufa, appeared on the right flank of the defense.

The last time the defender played for the first team of bulls was in December 2019, after which he was recovering from injuries for a long time.

This season, he limited himself to 31 minutes for Krasnodar's double in a meeting with Chertanovo in the FNL, so the coach's decision seemed extremely risky.

As Goncharenko said at the pre-match press conference, his tasks for the remainder of the championship are to stabilize the results, normalize the game in defense and get to know the players.

And it seemed that the meeting with Arsenal was ideal for solving all three points.

At least for the reason that on Thursday the Tula fought with CSKA in the Russian Cup and hardly had time to properly recover.

In addition, Dmitry Parfyonov could not count on Alexander Lomovitsky, who received the fourth yellow card in the previous round.

After the first 45 minutes, several intermediate conclusions could be drawn: firstly, even in this state, Arsenal is able not only to play on equal terms, but also surpass the current Krasnodar, and secondly, a change of coach and emotional shake-up is not enough to solve problems "Bulls".

Usually, the arrival of a new mentor helps athletes to relax and at least temporarily improve their performance, but not in this case.

The black-greens clearly felt ill at ease.

In the first half, Krasnodar lost to Arsenal in all key indicators: the hosts hit twice as many shots on goal (10: 5), were more accurate in passing (77% - 74%) and even surpassed the guests in terms of ball possession ( 52.5% - 47.5%).

The latter seemed the most surprising, because in the last ten meetings the southerners lost only once in terms of this indicator - Dynamo in the 23rd round.

At the same time, it could not be said that Goncharenko deliberately decided to give the initiative to his opponent and act as number two.

Just constant mistakes and poor movement without the ball did not allow not only to exercise control at the usual level, but also to create dangerous moments at the goal of Yegor Shamov.

Overall, Krasnodar lacked consistency.

Moreover, this applied to both attack and defense.

On one half of the field, this made it difficult to organize branded combinational attacks, which is why all the danger arose after the individual actions of Remy Cabella or Wanderson, and on the other, it led to colossal failures.

The defenders did not control the area in front of the penalty area, as a result of which the “gunners” were regularly the first on the ball after clearances.

And Alexander Martynovich and Kayo made gross oversights.

After such mistakes, Evgeny Lutsenko and Vladislav Panteleev miraculously did not distinguish themselves.

However, the climax was an episode in the center of the field, during which the Brazilian and the Belarusian went together for the same riding ball and collided with each other, contributing to the organization of the hosts' counter-attack.

During the break, Goncharenko did not manage to reach out to his charges, as a result of which problems persisted.

Yes, we managed to improve the percentage of ball possession, but no more.

There were still no chances, high pressure seemed disorganized, there were regular difficulties in defense, and the area in front of the penalty area remained ownerless.

It is not surprising that in the end it was from her that Goran Chaushic's fatal blow came.

Not without a bit of luck, but the guests were in the role of catch-up.

From that moment on, Krasnodar's territorial advantage was overwhelming.

True, the reason is not in the increased level of play, but in the decrease in the activity of Arsenal.

Dmitry Parfyonov's team focused on defending their own goal and gave the ball to the opponent, as a result of which he managed to end the meeting with the usual possession advantage (55% - 45%).

However, the combination game still did not go well, as evidenced by only four shots on the goal of Shamov.

And only one fell on target, and even then from a free kick.

At the beginning of the second half, Goncharenko removed Stotsky, who made his unsuccessful debut in the season, from the field and released Igor Smolnikov, and made four more substitutions before the final whistle.

The appearance of Ari and Yevgeny Markov was clearly made with the expectation of a bulk, but it did not work out to organize it.

In the actions of the guests, there was no desire or charge for the fight, and therefore attempts to push the opponent to the goal were unsuccessful.

Only the fall of Markov in the penalty area could change the state of affairs, but the referee Ivan Sidenkov did not dare to point out the "point".

Among the substitutes, Magomed-Shapi Suleimanov looked more active than others.

But his individual skill was not enough to snatch even a point.

Krasnodar lost to Arsenal for the first time since 2017.

The team has demonstrated that failures in recent matches cannot be attributed solely to coaching mistakes, and part of their reasons lies in the emotional plane.

At the end of the meeting, Goncharenko agreed with this and said that this season in the game of the “bulls” one should hardly expect any solid improvements.

“When you get such a bad streak, it takes a lot of effort to turn the tide.

You need to grit your teeth and work, not nod at each other.

Of course, the scope of work is still large, but there are moments that I liked.

The team is psychologically strong, they just got into a zone of turbulence.

There is little time left until the end of the championship.

We need to prepare for the next one, ”Goncharenko said on Match TV.