Abascal substitutions at half-time, Noboa's three penalties and Khudyakov's pass to Ignatiev: what did the 7th round of the RPL remember

Unsuccessful resignation of Juran

The resignation of Sergei Yuran from the post of head coach of Khimki has become one of the main mysteries of the current RPL season.

The club, under his leadership, avoided relegation in the last season of the national championship and successfully started this one.

In four starting rounds, the team scored seven points and was quite a bit behind the top three.

However, the coach was fired for unclear reasons.

The replacement of the mentor did not bring happiness to the Moscow Region team.

On the contrary, led by Nikolai Pisarev, he suffered three defeats in a row with a total score of 2:10.

In this segment, the red-blacks showed the worst result in the league along with the outsider Torpedo.

Moreover, if in meetings with Akhmat and Lokomotiv Denis Glushakov and his partners at least created chances, then the away confrontation with Sochi turned out to be a failure in all respects.

The guests struck only two hits and not a single one on target, and soaked the score only thanks to the ridiculous own goal of Artyom Meshchaninov.

Not the best way things were in defense.

Southerners over and over again penetrated into someone else's penalty area, creating dangerous moments.

The defenders of Khimki regularly had to break the rules, which resulted in the appointment of as many as three penalties.

This is only the fifth such case in the championship of Russia over the past ten years.

Southerners leader Christian Noboa had a chance to score a hat-trick and become the sole leader of the scorers race.

However, if he realized the first two blows from the “point” without a chance for Ilya Lantratov, then the third one hit the crossbar.

In general, Sochi has taken the lead in the number of penalty kicks this season - they have done it six times in seven rounds (Noboa converted five of them).

The amazing nature of "Pari NN"

If Khimki in the last rounds upset their own fans with lack of will, then Pari Nizhny Novgorod, on the contrary, shows character and gradually deserves the title of a thunderstorm of authorities.

This season, the wards of Mikhail Galaktionov have already taken points from three metropolitan giants: Lokomotiv, CSKA and Dynamo.

Moreover, in the last two cases, they managed to make spectacular comebacks at home.

In both meetings, the hosts conceded two unanswered goals in the first half, but after the break they broke the course of unsuccessfully developing matches and deservedly avoided defeats.

In the game with the blue and white, the hosts seemed to have no chance, but they were helped to escape by the rivals' central defender Roberto Fernandez.

First, he "brought" a penalty, and a few minutes later he received a second yellow card.

Nikolai Kalinsky and Dmitry Stotsky restored the status quo on the scoreboard, and in the end they could well bring victory to their team.

The first from a free-kick hit the crossbar, and Anton Shunin coped with the second one at point-blank range.

Also, one should not forget the productive match with Rostov, in which Pari NN lost twice with a difference of two goals, but almost escaped defeat - 3:4.

Galaktionov also had his own joker.

They became Timur Suleymanov, who was bought from Lokomotiv.

In the current RPL draw, he scored three times after coming on as a substitute (double in the match with CSKA and a goal against Rostov) and leads in this indicator along with Alexander Dolgov, Ivan Sergeyev and Vladimir Sychev.

Timely castling of Abascal

Once again, Guillermo Abascal also took advantage of the depth of the bench.

The first half of the match with Fakel was not very successful for Spartak.

Muscovites, although they had the initiative, rarely penetrated into someone else's penalty area and lost a lot of martial arts.

Their actions clearly lacked aggression.

All this led to a ball conceded from Aslan Dashaev after an attack with a second pace.

However, the staff's competent castling helped the red-whites to return to the game.

Inert Mikhail Ignatov and Nail Umyarov left the field.

First of all, this concerned the latter, who did not provide proper pressure in the center and did not perform a single defensive action (tackles, interceptions, clearances).

He was replaced by central defender Nikita Chernov.

The universal Ruslan Litvinov rose to the support zone from the defense.

And Anton Zinkovsky replaced Ignatov in position.

This immediately paid off.

Spartak began to play brighter and more aggressively, turned on their trademark high pressure and began to outperform their rivals in the rebound zone.

It was the slowness in the central zone that cost the Voronezh team two goals conceded with a difference of six minutes, although in both cases the performance skills of Roman Zobnin and Daniil Denisov played a role, sending the balls into the lower corners of the goal, despite the accumulation of players in the penalty area.

In the end, Quincy Promes said his weighty word again.

First, the Muscovite striker single-handedly dealt with two defenders and removed all the question of the winner, and then gave an excellent pass to an empty net by Maciej Rybus, thanks to which he was the first of the RPL players of the season to reach a double-digit mark in the “goal + pass” system.

An unexpected hero of Lokomotiv

Lokomotiv after a disastrous start to the season is gradually recovering.

In the last two games of the national championship, the railway workers won two devastating victories over Khimki and Orenburg with a total score of 8:1.

The outcome of the confrontation with the newcomer of the elite division was a foregone conclusion in the debut of the meeting.

Ivan Ignatiev unexpectedly became her main hero.

Having signed a contract with the Muscovites as a free agent, Ignatiev at first did not impress at the new place.

In matches with Krasnodar and Khimki, he struck only one hit each, although he came out at the start.

But in a meeting with Orenburg, Ivan finally broke through.

The forward shocked the fans in a good way, scoring three times in 11 minutes.

Surprisingly, this is not the fastest hat-trick in the history of the Russian championships.

For the past 12 years, the record has been held by ex-Spartak Welliton (six minutes).

Ignatiev is located in this list in seventh place.

At the same time, Daniil Khudyakov turned out to be one of the forward's assistants.

He became the author of the second assist among goalkeepers in the current RPL draw after Igor Akinfeev and the first in Loko since 2011, when Marinato Guilherme scored a similar achievement.

Low performance of Zenit forwards

If Lokomotiv in the reporting round quickly removed all questions about the outcome of the match, then Zenit, like Spartak, experienced difficulties in confronting an outsider.

Both in Voronezh and Yekaterinburg, the favorite in the first half failed to break through the inferior opponent in the class.

However, in the case of Petersburgers, one should talk about a trend.

In the current RPL draw, they upset only Khimki, Krylya Sovetov and CSKA before the break.

But Lokomotiv, Akhmat and even Torpedo with Ural kept their gates intact.

In total, in the first half of the meetings, the reigning champion of the country has so far scored only five goals, three of which went to Samara.

In the future, the wards of Sergei Semak, as a rule, squeezed opponents in the class.

One of the reasons for what is happening is the low performance of forwards.

After the departure of Serdar Azmun, Artyom Dzyuba and Yuri Alberto, the blue-white-blues are experiencing problems with the attack line.

Ivan Sergeev, who made his bright debut at Zenit in the spring, is content with the role of a joker and distinguishes himself by exclusively coming on as a substitute.

Getting into the base, it does not look so convincing.

In Yekaterinburg, he recorded only two inaccurate blows as an asset.

The coaching staff more often releases newcomer Mateo Cassierra from the first minutes, but he has not yet opened an account with balls in the RPL as part of St. Petersburg.

And the indicator of expected goals (xG) leaves much to be desired - 1.29.

However, according to Semak, the main thing is that both attackers have moments, and implementation will come to them sooner or later.

In the reporting game, both forwards recorded their assets in the transfer, and the Brazilians Rodrigao and Malcolm scored (twice), as well as Andrey Mostovoy.