Goal series of Azmun and Erokhin

Zenit won their third victory in the new season and with nine points continues to lead the Russian Premier League standings. This time, Sergei Semak's wards beat Krasnodar at home in a tense match, but again allowed Mikhail Kerzhakov to be upset twice. As part of the guests, John Cordoba and Urosh Spaich, acquired from Hertha, distinguished themselves, and this is not counting the canceled goal of Eduard Spertsyan. His accurate free-kick would have helped the Southerners restore parity already in the 16th minute, but was not counted. Right before the kick, one of the guests' players stood up in the wall, which gave the chief referee Alexei Amelin a reason not to score a goal.

Zenit scored all their goals before the break. It took Serdar Azmun only 35 minutes to complete a double and come close to Wagner Love in the list of the best foreign scorers in RPL history. The Iranian has 82 goals, the Brazilian has three more. Also, Alexander Erokhin, who reappeared at the base, lit his name on the scoreboard. The midfielder started the championship extremely well and keeps up with his partner - he is different in every match and already has four accurate hits in his assets.

Against their background, the top scorer of the team of the last two seasons looks so far incomprehensible.

Artyom Dziuba again failed to please his personal fans, in the second half he made many losses, and left the field in the 66th minute.

Taking into account the Russian Super Cup, the forward could not distinguish himself in the fourth meeting in a row.

The last time he did not score for so long was in the 2017/18 championship.

Then his goalless streak lasted ten meetings.

Lokomotiv's willpower

In the 4th round, Zenit will meet with Lokomotiv, which continues to consistently score points, despite the difficult situation inside the club. In the last match, the railroad workers escaped defeat in an away game with Ufa, spending the entire second half in the minority. The key episode occurred in compensated time for the first half, when Dmitry Barinov stepped on the foot of Philip Mrzlyak in his own penalty area. After watching the video replay, the referee Ivan Sidenkov presented the midfielder with a second yellow card and awarded a penalty, which Oleg Ivanov confidently converted.

In the second half, Ufa had a huge number of opportunities to double the advantage, and overall surpassed Lokomotiv both in the number of shots on goal (12 - 10) and in terms of expected goals xG (1.46 - 0.45).

However, Marko Nikolic's wards reminded themselves of a sample of the ending of the last championship and again took advantage of one of the rare chances.

Substitute Vitaly Lisakovich only had six minutes to score and set the final score.

It is noteworthy that for the entire last season Lokomotiv scored only four points, losing in the course of meetings.

In the current one, they already have seven points in their asset.

In the first round, the red-greens conceded first, but broke the resistance of Arsenal, and in the second, a similar fate awaited CSKA.

“We now have seven points after three rounds.

I will not comment on the game.

We started this championship very difficult.

An obvious mistake in the fourth minute in the first round, when the goal scored by Krykhovyak was canceled.

Then there was a clear mistake in the second round, when we conceded a free-kick against CSKA.

I think that tomorrow we will also consider it a clear mistake, as we conceded a goal today.

We understand that we must start every game with minus one, and then turn it in our direction, ”said Nikolic.

Dynamo win in the derby

CSKA, on the other hand, was defeated in the second round in a row, leading the score during the meeting - and again in the Moscow derby. Already in the eighth minute, Alexei Berezutsky's charges brought Chidera Ejuke ahead, but in the second half Dynamo literally crushed an opponent. Against the background of the following indicators, the superiority of Ufa over Lokomotiv seems insignificant: in the second half alone, the blue and white struck almost five times more shots on goal (14: 3), and the difference in xG seems colossal at all (2.37 - 0.33).

Such a charge for the result of Sandro Schwartz's team can be explained not only by their champion ambitions, but also by their desire to support their comrade. A day before the start of the match, Daniil Lesovoy successfully underwent knee surgery, which is why he will miss about six months. And this led to several events at once. Firstly, Dynamo entered the field wearing special T-shirts with words of support addressed to their teammate. Secondly, Denis Makarov, acquired from Rubin, got a chance to prove himself.

As a result, it was his long-range shot that helped to practically recreate the goal of the Brazilian Ronaldo in the 2002 World Cup final. Makarov shot from outside the penalty area, Igor Akinfeev could not fix the ball, and Daniil Fomin arrived in time to finish. For the central midfielder of "Dynamo" this goal was the second in the match - before that he converted the 18th penalty in his career for a foul by Yaki Biyol on Arsen Zakharyan. It is all the more interesting that not the author of the double, but the 18-year-old midfielder, was recognized as the main character of the meeting. He was again one of the main characters in the team's attack and took part in creating a number of dangerous moments.

This victory allowed Dynamo to keep up with Zenit in terms of the number of points scored and to identify their claims to the championship.

As for CSKA, the team not only lost the second match in a row, but also lost the main striker.

At the end of the first half, Anton Zabolotny was injured and was replaced by Emil Bohinen.

As the assistant to the head coach Grigory Babayan noted, the reason was “discomfort in the gluteal muscle region,” and the initial diagnosis was muscle spasm.

The timing of the restoration is still unknown.

Scandals in Kazan

Apart from Zenit and Dynamo, Rubin has not yet lost a single point at the start of the season. True, the match of the third round with "Akhmat" will be remembered rather not by the strong-willed victory of the Kazan team, but by various scandals. The reason for one of them was the ambiguous work of the chief arbiter Pavel Kukuyan and video assistant Igor Panin. The reason for the emergence of another was the quality of the Ak Bars Arena lawn, which caused a storm of indignation from the head coach of the owners Leonid Slutsky.

As for the refereeing, the reason for the dissatisfaction on the part of the guests was two episodes, as a result of which the potential scoring attacks were interrupted. In the first half, Philip Uremovich stopped the breakthrough to the goal of Mohamed Konate in a subcategory, while hitting the striker in the legs, and in the second, Grozny goalkeeper Giorgi Shelia crashed into Ivan Ignatiev. In the first case, the arbitrators did not notice the violation of the rules, and in the second they removed the violator. Moreover, initially Kukuyan showed the goalkeeper a yellow card, but after the advice of the video assistant he watched the replay and changed his mind. This greatly angered the representatives of the guests, who promised to seek clarification from the Russian Football Union and the expert referee commission.

Slutsky was also not completely satisfied with the refereeing, although the result was probably fine with him.

First, the Kazan team distinguished themselves with a direct free-kick, assigned for Shelia's fatal foul, thereby responding to Daniil Utkin's ball from the set, and in the end snatched the victory.

Oliver Abilgore hit his head after a corner, and Gabriel Jankou cut the ball into his own goal.

However, the claims of the Rubin mentor were directed to the management of the stadium, who, according to him, “killed the lawn” by holding various events, forums and weddings.

It is possible that one of the reasons to complain about the state of the field was the injury of George Despotovich, who was replaced already in the 15th minute.

According to Metaratings, the forward runs the risk of missing three to four weeks.

Failure of "Spartak"

A terrible injury occurred in the match, which became one of the most talked about in the 3rd round of the Russian championship. At the beginning of the second half, Nizhny Novgorod defender Ivan Miladinovich collided with Spartak forward Esekiel Ponce and received a closed head injury. For some time, the bleeding footballer remained unconscious, and could leave the field only in an electric car. Subsequently, the Serb was taken to a hospital, where he received assistance and a wound in his temple was sewn up. According to his agent Anton Sinkov, the player quickly recovered and was already trying to go for a walk.

It is interesting that the absence of the main central defender did not prevent Nizhny Novgorod from creating one of the main sensations at the start of the championship. By the time Miladinovic was forced to leave the field, the guests were leading in two goals, and they scored them in the first quarter of an hour. Spartak had more than enough time to recoup, but scored their only goal at the very end. Ponce again found himself in the penalty area and this time converted the moment. However, this hardly satisfied the fans. Even during the meeting, they chanted insulting chants at the wife of the owner of the club Leonid Fedun - Zarema Salikhova, and after the final whistle they turned to the players with the demand not to shame the red and white.

And there really was a reason for this.

Spartak suffered a second defeat in the RPL and dropped to 11th place with three points.

The last time the team lost in two of the three starting matches of the championship during the transition season-2011/12, when it was coached by the current coach of the national team Valery Karpin.

The first part of that championship, the red and white finished on the fourth line, and eventually won silver.

Given the failure in the first qualifying match with Benfica, Spartak have lost three of four meetings under the leadership of Rui Vitoria - the second-worst result in club history.

The last time this happened was in 1976, when the team was headed by Anatoly Krutikov - then the team left the country's top division for the only time in history.