The failure of Norman, the removal of Fernandez and Zakharyan's emotions: how Dynamo lost to Zenit in the RPL in the minority

Jokanovic plan

In the match with Zenit, Slavisa Jokanovic not only made a number of personnel changes and almost completely went over the defensive line, but also decided to move away from the scheme that had already become Dynamo's trademark.

Instead of the 4-3-3 instilled by Sandro Schwartz, the bet was placed on the 4-2-3-1 formation.

In the support zone, Daniil Fomin and Matthias Normann made up the pair, the attacking trio were Nicolas Ngamalyo, Denis Makarov and Fedor Smolov, and Arsen Zakharyan tried on the role of the “tens”.

And to call this experiment successful is extremely difficult.

Under these conditions, the Russian midfielder had a colossal amount of work, and he did not always cope with it.

In pressing, he did not look his best, and in creation he was not as useful as usual, and often sinned with inaccurate passes.

The emotions that he more and more actively splashed out during the confrontation also harmed him.

It was the outbreak of aggression that led to the yellow card punishment, and subsequently cost him his place on the field.

But if the changes both in terms of the composition and the tactical scheme were colossal, then the game principles of the blue and white remained the same.

Dynamo resignedly gave the ball to Zenit and began to defend with large forces, counting on lightning-fast counterattacks.

The problem is that it was almost impossible to organize them.

In the first 45 minutes, the hosts delivered only two shots to Mikhail Kerzhakov's goal and never forced the goalkeeper to work hard.

And this is against the background of the Petersburgers, who regularly brought attacks to their logical conclusion.

And in such conditions it was almost impossible to achieve an acceptable result.

Being under constant pressure, Muscovites eventually began to make mistakes at their own penalty area, one of which led to a missed goal.

Detrained Norman

The appearance of the Norwegian at the start initially raised questions.

In the last round, Norman spent a whole time on the field and gave the impression of a football player who was not in his best shape, but his misadventures did not end there.

It seemed that the injury received in the Russian Cup match with Akhmat put an end to his prospects of playing with Zenit, but Jokanovic unexpectedly trusted his star newcomer.

And as it became clear later, this not only became one of his main mistakes, but also generally predetermined the outcome of the entire confrontation.

In the 35th minute, Norman made a gross mistake at his own penalty area - he unsuccessfully received the ball, fell in the fight against Ivan Sergeyev and allowed him to bring Andrey Mostovoy to a shock position.

Winger "Zenith" had only to "shoot" Anton Shunin.

And although this has become a kind of "icing on the cake", Matthias's performance can be called a failure without it.

In the first half, he was practically not involved in the game, did not make a single selection, and the accuracy of his passes was depressing (43%).

The Norwegian looked absolutely unprepared to meet such a status and was clearly experiencing health problems.

In the course of the segment, he rose from the lawn a couple of times with great difficulty, after which he limped.

Therefore, it is not surprising that already during the break he gave way to Luka Gagnidze. 

Center forward problem

If you look solely at the statistical indicators, the superiority of Sergei Semak's wards may seem overwhelming.

And to some extent this is true.

They had a huge territorial advantage, they hit a lot, but their performance still cannot be called ideal.

Yes, the Brazilian legionnaires of the guests looked very cool and weaved multi-way combinations, but at the same time they had certain difficulties with breaking open the enemy's massive defense.

In the first 70 minutes, Claudinho, who remained on the bench, was missing, still not in the best condition after the injury, and Sergeev, although he took a direct part in a couple of key episodes, can hardly be completely satisfied with himself.

Like it or not, one shot towards the goal for the central striker is an extremely low figure, especially when their total number is 21. And the fact that it was for a foul on him that Roberto Fernandez received a second yellow card can hardly be called solely his merit .

At that moment, the Paraguayan lost the position and did not follow the striker's breakthrough, and after that he was very careless in the selection.

In general, Zenit has not yet been able to fully resolve the issue with the central striker.

Sergeev and Mateo Cassierra are qualified football players, but in terms of their level they are still seriously inferior to Artyom Dziuba and Serdar Azmun, who have determined the game of blue-white-blue in attack over the past years.

And this difference in class is seriously striking in such important matches.

And Semak has not yet been able to compensate for it. 

Champion Domination

However, this was more than enough for Zenit to confidently take over one of the strongest RPL teams.

Of course, it is fair to say that Dynamo's hopes for a positive result were finally crossed out by the removal of Fernandez, but even before that, the blue-and-whites could not create anything in the attack.

During the entire meeting, they shot only seven times on goal and in total they accumulated only 0.16 of the expected goal (xG).

The last time this happened to them was in August 2020, and also in the confrontation with Zenit (0.15).

True, then this did not prevent them from creating a sensation and taking three points thanks to an accurate shot by Tony Shunyich.

Yes, everything could have turned out differently, if Daniil Fomin hit his phenomenal “shot” from 30 meters not on the crossbar, but a little lower.

But even in this sense, it would be worth talking only about a flash of individual skill, not capable of changing the impression of what was happening on the field.

And there, Dynamo demonstrated its inability to fight on equal terms with Zenit.

In this regard, the second goal of Zenit looks much more logical.

Gustavo Mantuan did what failed to close the chamber from the flank of Rodrigao and beat Malcom from a lethal position, thereby helping the guests to strengthen the advantage and make the scoreboard a little more illustrating the difference between the teams.