Safonov's mistakes, Chernov's unreliability and the silence of Agalarov and Pisarsky: the main disappointments of the last RPL season

Highlights: Former top scorer Hamid Agalarov scored only three times, and Vladimir Pisarsky, who finished the first part with 14 goals, did not score even once after moving to Krylia Sovetov. Arsen Zakharyan and Denis Makarov sharply slowed down after the change of head coach at Dynamo. Zelimikhan Bakaev settled on the bench of Zenit in the company of Alexander Erokhin and Alexei Sutormin. Matvey Safonov made productive mistakes more often than other goalkeepers, and Nikita Chernov did not add reliability to Spartak's defense.

In the completed RPL season, many players played worse than expected. Former top scorer Hamid Agalarov scored only three times, and Vladimir Pisarsky, who finished the first part with 14 goals, did not score even once after moving to Krylia Sovetov. Arsen Zakharyan and Denis Makarov sharply slowed down after the change of head coach at Dynamo. Zelimikhan Bakaev settled on the bench of Zenit in the company of Alexander Erokhin and Alexei Sutormin. Matvey Safonov made productive mistakes more often than other goalkeepers, and Nikita Chernov did not add reliability to Spartak's defense. About the main disappointments of the championship of Russia - in the material RT.

Goalless forwards

Last season, Hamid Agalarov became the main discovery of the RPL despite the fact that Ufa was relegated to the First League. He scored 19 goals and finished first in the race of the tournament's top scorers. It seemed that domestic giants were obliged to show interest in him, but the forward did not wait for offers from them and moved to Akhmat.

However, the first season in the new place was completely spent on adaptation: for comparison, in the championship, the newcomer scored only three times and only eight times entered the field in the start. Both Andrey Talalaev and Sergey Tashuev preferred Mohamed Konate to him, who, unlike his competitor, regularly upset his rivals.

The striker naturally lost self-confidence, and this affected the implementation. If a year ago he used even non-obvious moments, now he missed from the most advantageous positions. What is worth at least a chance at the end of the meeting with Fakel, when Agalarov hit an empty net from a few meters, but hit the defender.

With Vladimir Pisarsky, such a metamorphosis took place within the framework of one championship. In the first part of it, the native of Crimea pleasantly surprised the fans and dragged Orenburg along with him. In 15 matches of the national championship, he struck 14 accurate shots and fought for the title of the best sniper of the RPL with Quincy Promes.

However, the transition to Krylia Sovetov in the winter did not justify itself. Firstly, the striker completely stopped scoring - in 11 matches he did not do it even once, and secondly, he was forced to join the exhausting struggle for survival. Moreover, unlike Agalarov, Pisarsky cannot complain about the lack of practice, since the Samara team only twice remained on the bench in the RPL.

But they are united with a colleague by a sharp drop in sales. In Orenburg, the expected goals indicator was (xG) 8.27, and in Krylia - 1.58. The chances themselves have also become much smaller. It is not surprising that the player's agent Viktor Panchenko at some point called the transfer of the ward a mistake.

Internationals in the champion's reserve

In the summer of 2022, Zelimkhan Bakaev's transfer from Spartak to Zenit made a lot of noise. One of the brightest wingers of the country was not afraid to move to the camp of a principled rival and was eager to impose competition on the legionnaires of St. Petersburg. A year later, there is absolute silence around the Russian. Fans, as it was in Spartak, do not even argue how natural his absence in the start is. One gets the impression that the midfielder is simply not in the team.

In the first part, Zelimkhan still came on as a substitute and even for the first and last time he got into the base for the RPL game, and for the most important meeting with CSKA. However, in the future he received less and less time, and in the spring he spent four minutes on the field in the national championship, but became the champion of Russia. There was no talk of winning the competition from Malcom on the right edge of the attack, and on the opposite side, Sergei Semak preferred Andrei Mostovoy. In the Cup of the country, the Russian, on the contrary, was a football player of the base and even distinguished himself in matches with Volga and Dynamo.

A similar problem was faced by other domestic performers of Zenit, who were important rotation players the season before last - Alexander Erokhin and Alexei Sutormin. Then both often replaced injured leaders, for example, the latter was able to play both on the edge of defense and in midfield. In the summer, Sutormin, who only two years ago wore the captain's armband in the Russian national team, appeared on the right edge of defense due to the injury of Vyacheslav Karavaev, but then firmly settled in the reserve. Erokhin, like Bakaev, only once entered the field from the first minutes in the RPL, and in total spent only 248 minutes on it.

Knocked down the youth at Dynamo

More recently, Dynamo under the leadership of Sandro Schwartz with a large number of young Russians in the squad aroused the sympathy of the fans. Arsen Zakharyan was deservedly considered the main star of the blue and white. It is no coincidence that Chelsea showed a substantive interest in him. However, it never came to the transition in the summer of 2022, and after that the midfielder's game faded.

On the one hand, in the past season, he scored not much less points than in the previous one - 13 (4 + 9) against 15 (7 + 8). And the decrease in performance can be explained by a change in tactics under Slavis Jokanovic and the movement of the player a little lower with a large amount of rough work. On the other hand, a certain lightness and magic disappeared from Arsene's actions, when the audience did not know what he would do in the next moment, and admired out-of-the-box thinking. Zakharyan looked especially hard in the first part of the season, when he gave out a goalless streak of three months. However, the footballer himself stressed that the failed move to England did not affect him.

But Denis Makarov regressed almost more than others. Under Schwartz, he became a problem for all opponents on the right edge, boldly went to the rim and hit the goal with his beloved left, and when he lost, he diligently joined the pressure. Last season, compared to the previous one, he slowed down in all key indicators - shots (1.6 vs. 2.3), passes for impact (0.8 vs. 1.2), dribbling attempts (0.9 vs. 1.7). And in the spring, Makarov completely lost his place in the base.

The decline of eminent veterans

Some experienced performers also sharply slowed down. In the first place among them can be put Denis Glushakov. The season before last, he led the modest Khimki and with his ten goals largely allowed them to remain in the elite division. But the 36-year-old midfielder is hardly able to add to the last RPL draw.

It is difficult to blame him for the failure of the Moscow region team, since there was a mess inside, and it was sometimes difficult to see the logic in the decisions of the leadership. But he himself clearly acted not at the same level as before, and did not distinguish himself even once. The champion of Russia was remembered only for a public conflict with Spartak Gogniev. In the match with Dynamo, lost with a score of 1: 6, the coach replaced him in the first half and led him to the locker room with an obscene tirade. In early January, the contract with the player was terminated.

Soon Denis signed an agreement with Nizhny Novgorod until the end of the season with the possibility of prolongation for a year, but there he did not become a solid player of the base. Nothing has changed with the arrival of Sergei Yuran, who is well known to him from his work at Khimki. On the contrary, Nizhny Novgorod gave a successful segment at the finish line without a newcomer.

But another ex-football player of "Spartak" Ilya Kutepov frankly failed. Unlike his former partner, he left the red-and-white camp only in 2022. It seemed that this was a good reinforcement for automobile manufacturers. Firstly, not so long ago he was the main player of Spartak and the Russian national team, and secondly, he was relatively young - he was not yet 30 years old.

Alas, nothing happened both for the black and white, and for the native of Stavropol. Kutepov missed most of the autumn due to injury. In the spring, he returned to the cage, but almost did not enter the field, losing the competition. And in April, Pep Clotet suspended him from working with the base. In June, the paths of the player and the club finally diverged.

Goalkeeper mistakes

The completed draw of the national championship turned out to be ambiguous for Matvey Safonov. On the one hand, he regularly helped out his teammates and took third place in the league in both the number of saves (101) and the average percentage of shots saved (74.3%). At the same time, the goalkeeper of Krasnodar was on the first line in terms of productive errors - four. Especially memorable was the blot in the match of the last round of the RPL with Akhmat, when the goalkeeper tried to remove the opponent who was creeping in the tackle with a feint, but did not calculate and lost the ball. As a result, Grozny equalized, and a few minutes later took the lead. The Bulls were saved only at the cost of incredible efforts.

After that, Matvey runs the risk of not getting into the base for the final of the Russian Cup with CSKA, because in May Vladimir Ivich tried Stanislav Agkatsev in two meetings, and he did not miss even once, and in the meeting with the army team he made several bright saves. Probably, the mood of the first number is affected by problems in his personal life, since at the moment he is suing his ex-wife.

The progress of another young goalkeeper, Daniil Khudyakov, also stalled. Even under Marcus Gisdol, he ousted Marinato Guilherme himself from the Lokomotiv base and spent the first part of the 2022/23 RPL as irreplaceable. In 14 meetings, the young man conceded 30 goals. Of course, it was not without mistakes, but he regularly saved. By the winter break in the championship in terms of the number of super saves (26), Khudyakov was second only to Safonov (34). However, with the arrival of Ilya Lantratov, the promising goalkeeper stopped getting practice, and it is no coincidence that there were rumors that the railwaymen were ready to sell him.

Defenders who did not live up to expectations

With regard to the defense of Spartak, it is difficult to make personal claims. However, the fact that the purchase of Nikita Chernov did not justify itself remains a fact. Initially, it was unclear whether he would pull such a high level, and the end of the season rather gave a negative answer.

If you study the basic statistical metrics, it seems that everything is not so bad. For example, in terms of the average number of equestrian fights won (1.4), the defender shares second place in the team with Christopher Martins Pereira and is ahead of all competitors in position. And in terms of the number of interceptions (1.2), he is on the third line along with Ruslan Litvinov and Roman Zobnin.

But in matches with strong rivals of the class, Chernov is not enough, and he begins to make blots. Especially memorable was the episode from the meeting with Zenit in the first round, when Nikita lost the ball on a corner kick and allowed Dejan Lovren to equalize. The spring was also not without flaws. For example, in the confrontation with Krasnodar, he lost the position to John Cordoba and allowed him to close the cross, and in the derby with CSKA did not prevent Fedor Chalov from giving an effective discount. In addition, the footballer does not start attacks in the best way, and therefore Guillermo Abascal prefers to use Dzhikiya Litvinov in tandem with Georgy.

But if Chernov at least played regularly, then Yegor Sorokin spent a year down the drain. The central defender, who managed to make his debut in the Russian national team in 2018, turned out to be almost not in demand in Krasnodar despite the mass departure of legionnaires. Alexander Storozhuk trusted the duo Vyacheslav Litvinov and Caio Pantalean. And with the return of Junior Alonso, the Russian finally stopped entering the field and, in addition, was injured.