Larsson's goal, Akhmetov's removal and not a single shot on target of Maksimenko: how Spartak beat CSKA in the 27th round of the RPL

Trouble before the derby

By the 158th Moscow derby "Spartak" and CSKA came not in the best condition.

Red and white suffered two defeats in a row in the RPL and dropped to third place.

CSKA not only lost to Sochi in the championship, but also devastatingly lost to Lokomotiv in the Russian Cup semifinals this week.

At the same time, the rivals no longer had the right to misfire, because the struggle for places in European cups and medals at the end of the season escalated to the limit, and only three points separated the second place from the sixth after the 26th round.

At the same time, both teams had personnel problems, primarily in the defensive line.

Domenico Tedesco lost the disqualified Samuel Gigot, and Ivica Olic, due to injuries, had to do without three defenders at once - Herdur Magnusson, Vadim Karpov and Mario Fernandez.

It was assumed that the naturalized Brazilian will be able to recover at least for the main derby of the country, but this did not happen.

As a result, the guests, as in the meeting with the railroad workers, made a bet in defense on Georgy Shchennikov, Viktor Vasin, Igor Diveev and Konstantin Maradishvili.

In principle, the composition of the red and blue is completely the same.

As for the owners, Ilya Kutepov, as expected, replaced Zhigo.

Spartak's pressure

And the red and white from the first minutes began to use the opponent's problems in defense.

They were especially active on the left flank of the attack, where the nominal midfielder Maradishvili was acting.

Ayrton, who had served a suspension, regularly joined the attacks here.

Quincy Promes and Jordan Larsson also moved here.

Moments at the gates of Igor Akinfeev also began to arise quickly enough.

Before Pavel Kukuyan had time to give the starting whistle, the Swede made a dangerous cross from the edge, which Alexander Sobolev did not have time to close.

Next, Ayrton struck an unpleasant blow, but Igor Akinfeev coped with it.

And in the 15th minute, the colleagues of the judge at the VAR were even forced to consider the episode in the CSKA penalty area.

It seemed that the ball after the shot of Victor Moses fell into the hand of the army's defender, but the referee did not assign a penalty in the end.

The incident had no effect on the attacking mood of Spartak.

Soon, the Nigerian was again in the spotlight, who left Alan Dzagoev and shot dangerously.

Akinfeev once again rescued the red and blue.

At the same time, Olic's charges in the attack did not work out practically anything.

The main star of the team, Nikola Vlašić, was almost invisible and only confirmed the fans in the opinion that he was not in the best shape.

Jose Salomon Rondon, as in previous games, completely disappeared into the field.

As a result, before the break, the guests did not even strike a single blow on the target of Alexander Maksimenko's goal.

The controversial removal of Ilzat Akhmetov in the 37th minute made their life even more difficult.

The midfielder in the fight against Sobolev spikes crashed into the opponent's leg.

The striker with all his appearance tried to demonstrate that the foul was as rude as possible, and after watching the replay, Kukuyan showed the midfielder a straight red card.

She became his second after the resumption of the season.

Akhmetov was also forced to leave the field ahead of schedule in the match against Zenit (2: 3).

To top all the troubles at the end of the half, Akinfeev collided with Vasin and for some time could not come to his senses.

Fortunately, there were no serious injuries, and the goalkeeper was able to continue the confrontation.

CSKA's inertia

Having received a numerical advantage in the score, in the second half of the meeting "Spartak" began to play even bolder.

Literally with the whistle of the referee, the team went ahead and soon achieved their goal.

If Sobolev, after an excellent Moses cross from the right edge, forgave the opponent and shot straight into the hands of Akinfeev, then Larsson did not miss his moment.

And he created it himself.

In the course of a quick attack, the attacker received the ball on the flank and easily left Vasin, who tried to insure Shchennikov, who ran ahead.

Then the Scandinavian beat Diveev in the penalty area and shot into the near corner.

Akinfeev, who was caught in the opposite direction, could not save his team.

Larsson also scored his 13th goal in the current RPL season.

Having just conceded, the army team made several promising attacks.

During one of them, Rondon, who had broken his head above the gate, finally reminded of himself.

However, the period of activity of the guests did not last long.

In the hope of refreshing the game, Olic instead of the inert Venezuelan released Fyodor Chalov on the field, but this did not help much, as did Nair Tiknizyan's appearance instead of Dzagoev.

In turn, Tedesco was forced to release Nail Umyarov instead of the lame Ayrton.

At the same time, the versatile Roman Zobnin moved to the right flank of the defense.

However, what happened did not affect the game in any way.

CSKA still did not succeed ahead.

The opponent's counterattacks looked much more dangerous.

So, Larsson in the 69th minute ran away to a rendezvous with Akinfeev, but the judge recorded an offside position.

And the goalkeeper in this situation was able to save the team.

In the end, Olic switched to a game of two strikers, throwing the Belarusian Ilya Shkurin into the battle.

The appearance of a fresh footballer helped the army team to create at least some semblance of an assault in the ending.

During one of the attacks, he dangerously threw the ball onto Chalov, but he did not succeed in the blow.

And already in stoppage time, Shkurin knocked down Kutepov with a powerful shot.

However, CSKA failed to recoup.

And this is not surprising, given that the team never struck a single shot on Maksimenko's goal.

Spartak took advantage of Larsson's removal and unexpectedly confidently brought the matter to the first victory in the Moscow derby in the RPL since August 2019.

CSKA suffered their third consecutive defeat in all tournaments and are already six points behind the Champions League zone.