Defenders of Spartak and Loko, hard workers of Pari NN and forwards from the Second League: the main discoveries of the autumn part of the RPL season

Vladimir Sychevoi (Orenburg)

15 RPL matches (14 goals + assist, 3 yellow cards)

Sychevo can safely be called the main discovery of the current RPL draw.

In just a few years, he went from playing in the Crimean championship to fighting for the title of top scorer in the Russian championship.

Even last season, he, along with Orenburg, played in the FNL and did not always get into the starting lineup.

However, the debut at a new level turned out to be bright.

Already in the second round, he hit the Ural gate three times, coming on as a substitute after the break.

After that, the striker almost did not sit on the bench and continued to score regularly.

He upset Dynamo and CSKA twice each, scored goals in matches with Lokomotiv, Khimki, Sochi and Akhmat.

Finally, in the confrontation with Krasnodar, he scored the second hat-trick in the championship and left for the winter break as the leader of the list of snipers along with Quincy Promes from Spartak.

Sychevy's performance helped Marcel Lichka's men finish the first part of the season in seventh place, because he scored 42.4% of the team's goals (14 out of 33).

At the same time, Vladimir demonstrates an enviable implementation, because the indicator of his expected goals (Xg) is 5.73 less than the real one.

For comparison, Promes has a difference of 3.23, while Malcolm has a difference of 3.27.

And Fedor Chalov, on the contrary, does not use his moments.

It is important that Sychevoi not only plays football well, but also manifests himself as an outstanding personality.

During the match against Sochi, a young man proposed to his girlfriend right at the stadium after taking a penalty kick.

Later, he promised to speak in a raised voice with Himmi Marin for the stolen goal, was upset that, when he was recognized as the best player of the meeting, he did not have time for a team pizza snack, promised to change his current surname to the surname of his stepfather Pisarsky and wrote warm words on his T-shirt addressed to relatives.

It is noteworthy that for the "Wings of the Soviets", where the football player moved at the end of the year, he was declared precisely as Pisarsky.

The forward signed a contract with the club from Samara until 2026. 

Danil Prutsev (Spartak)

16 matches in the RPL (goal + 3 assists, yellow card)

Prutsev, unlike Sychevy, can hardly be called a discovery, because he has already spent a couple of seasons in the RPL as part of the Wings of the Soviets and Sochi.

However, in Spartak, the football player reached a fundamentally different level, becoming the player of the base of the grand and contender for gold medals.

At first, Guillermo Abascal did not trust the young ward too much and released him exclusively for replacements.

The injuries of competitors Nail Umyarov and Christopher Martins Pereira helped.

Given the staffing problems, the coaching staff was forced to trust the midfielder more, and he did not disappoint.

Starting from the match of the tenth round against Lokomotiv, Danil invariably found himself at the start, and with him the red-whites scored six wins and two draws.

Not possessing outstanding anthropometric data (height - 174 cm, weight - 60 kg), the pupil of "Chertanovo" performs a huge amount of work in the support zone.

He averaged 1.3 tackles per game and 0.9 steals (seventh and ninth on the team).

He also plays an important role for the modern defensive midfielder in organizing attacks.

Prutsev pulls back to the central defenders and helps them out of defense.

And he does not just seek to give the ball to his neighbor, but tries to aggravate.

For a football player of his role, he has a solid rate of accurate passes (83.5%).

And in the derby with Lokomotiv, the midfielder was recognized as the best at all.

First, after his cutting pass, Quincy Promes earned a penalty, and then the midfielder himself scored the debut goal both for Spartak and in the RPL.

It is no coincidence that Prutsev is praised with might and main by partners.

So, Alexander Sobolev expressed confidence that in a year or two a teammate "will become overgrown with meat and will be a top player."

Timur Suleymanov (Nizhny Novgorod)

16 RPL matches (7 goals + assist, 4 yellow cards)

The mentor of the Russian youth team Mikhail Galaktionov, heading Nizhny Novgorod, expectedly made a bet on young performers.

One of them was Suleymanov.

The pupil of Lokomotiv, even under Alexander Kerzhakov, regularly entered the field, but scored only once.

But in the current one, he proved himself as a scorer and scored nine goals in total in all competitions.

Moreover, in the first rounds, the coach saw him exclusively as a joker, who comes on as a substitute after a break and suppresses his opponents with his power.

It worked.

Only half an hour was enough for the striker to score a double in the confrontation with CSKA and save the team from defeat (2:2).

Then, having appeared from the bench, he upset Rostov (3:4).

Suleimanov is one of the six most productive reservists in the current RPL draw.

Subsequently, Timur almost did not lose his place at the base and scored four more times.

Even if the striker cannot boast of outstanding technique, he is great at opening in the penalty area and converting his chances (in terms of xG, he scored 3.22 times more than expected).

Not possessing a grenadier height (183 cm), he plays great with his head and it was from the “second floor” that he upset CSKA and Rostov.

Last but not least, the athlete does a huge amount of work in the press.

It is significant that in the matches with Akhmat he twice forced his opponents to make mistakes under pressure, after which he scored.

Alexey Kashtanov (Ural)

15 RPL matches (5 goals + 3 assists, 2 yellow cards)

The path of Kashtanov is in many ways similar to the history of Sychev.

Aleksey also played in the lower and amateur leagues for many years and even, like Vladimir, played in the Crimean championship.

At some point, once again returning to Shoemaker from his native Dyatkovo, the football player was close to hanging up his boots.

A successful season in the Ulyanovsk Volga turned the forward's career upside down.

He scored 13 goals in FNL-2, and most importantly attracted the attention of Ural when he scored a double in the last round in a match with the farm club of Yekaterinburg.

In the summer after watching a full-fledged contract was signed with him.

Few could have imagined that Kashtanov, who had not even entered the field before in the FNL, would immediately show himself so clearly in the RPL.

In one of the first meetings, he hit the gates of Krasnodar with a shot from outside the penalty area.

But after the arrival of Viktor Goncharenko, the injury of Eric Bikfalvi helped to really open up.

The specialist was forced to bet on the 26-year-old Russian, and he took advantage of his chance.

October was especially successful for Alexei, when he scored four times and assisted his partners twice.

Moreover, in his person the team received a football player without weaknesses.

With a height of 196 cm, he clings to balls great.

But Kashtanov cannot be called a "pillar".

On the contrary, he competently opens between the lines and breaks into free zones, which is extremely useful, given the counterattacking model of Ural.

Moreover, the striker regularly helps to distinguish partners, and his power is useful on the standards.

Thanks to their rallies, he upset Krylya Sovetov in the fall, and also twice performed effective discounts for Yuri Gazinsky on corners.

Artyom Karpukas (Lokomotiv)

15 RPL matches (goal, 2 yellow cards)

Fans of Lokomotiv will hardly remember this season with warmth.

Muscovites are fighting for survival and have already changed several coaches.

In addition, there have been major changes in leadership.

The only hope is Artyom Karpukas.

Opornik can be considered the discovery of the year, because he made his way to the base back in the spring, displacing Sergey Babkin from it, who was initially preferred by Dmitry Loskov and Marvin Comper.

In the new RPL draw, a native of Biysk has become an indispensable performer in the support zone.

Including due to the sale of the French star Alexis Beck-Beck.

The defensive metrics of the 20-year-old central midfielder are impressive.

He leads the league in tackle average (4.1) by a margin.

It is important that Karpukas does not focus exclusively on destruction, but is a defensive midfielder of a modern formation, who, having taken the ball away, immediately seeks to start an attack.

He doesn't succumb to pressure and uses his in-game intelligence to find smart options to continue rather than just passing the ball.

And in the fall, a significant event took place in the life of the midfielder - he scored the debut goal in his adult career and brought the red-green the most important victory over the direct competitor of Torpedo in the struggle for survival.

Ilya Agapov (Paris NN)

13 RPL matches (4 yellow cards)

Agapov is another talented football player who started playing in Nizhny Novgorod.

In the summer, Ilya found himself at a crossroads.

Spartak-2, who owned the rights to the defender, ceased to exist, and he became a free agent.

Galaktionov extended a helping hand.

Before that, the specialist closely followed the pupil of Rubin and even invited him to the youth team.

The young man repaid the trust in full.

In the first three rounds of the RPL, he remained in reserve and in them the team scored two points and conceded six goals.

In the future, the headquarters made a bet in the center of defense on Kirill Gotsuk, Lukas Masoero and Agapov.

The newcomer initially looked like a weak link, because he had no experience of playing in the elite.

However, he made up for his absence with incredible self-confidence and dedication.

Since then, the defender has missed only one game - with Zenit due to a bust of cards.

More often he was used on the right in the top three, but sometimes he took a position in the very center, for example, in an away meeting with CSKA, when the guests won a sensational victory and did not miss, and Agapov himself won a huge number of martial arts.

The footballer's progress was so rapid that in the fall he received his first call-up to the senior national team.

And already at the beginning of 2023, Ilya moved to CSKA.

Ivan Oleinikov ("Akhmat")

17 matches in the RPL (goal + 4 assists, yellow card)

The mass departure of dozens of legionnaires in the spring and summer provided a unique opportunity to prove themselves in the Premier League for previously unclaimed domestic football players.

And all the heroes of this text fell into this trend.

Oleinikov was no exception.

He, like Agapov, was not needed by the top club.

For his native CSKA, the midfielder played only two matches and went for practice in the FNL.

And after moving to Chaika, which was relegated to the third division, it seemed almost impossible to return to the elite.

But the midfielder under the leadership of Sergei Tashuev had a great season.

An experienced specialist raised him higher - to the position of "tens", and this gave a result.

In total, in all tournaments, he not only scored 26 times, but also gave 16 assists, thanks to which he attracted the attention of Akhmat, with whom he signed an agreement in the summer.

And in the fall, Oleinikov was lucky for the second time: Tashuev, who was well known to him, replaced Andrei Talalaev.

First of all, the mentor moved the ward to a place under the attacker.

And the newcomer immediately became the leader of the team.

In the autumn in the RPL, he scored one goal and gave four assists.

He looked brightest in the confrontation with Krasnodar (3: 2), when he earned a penalty, assisted Artyom Timofeev and delivered the winning shot from outside the penalty area in the 95th minute.

Three more times the pupil of CSKA upset the rivals in the Cup of Russia.

Thus, in the team scorer race, he is second only to Mohamed Konata.