Sergey PogrebnyakSport correspondentAll materialsEmail the authorThe first half of the main match of the tour in the championship of Russia gave the fans of «Spartak» hope, but the second put everything in its place. “Zenith” was much stronger than “red-white” and brought the case to a logical victory. Now Sergey Semak's team is three points ahead of its closest competitors and is starting to break away. Russian Premier League (RPL)04 September 2022 • Start at 20:00End
Spartak MoscowRussia1 : 2Zenit Russia Only eight rounds have passed, but already now it seems that the “blue-white-blue” will quietly become champions for the fifth time in a row. The first matches of the season gave only the illusion of competition, but at a distance the club from St. Petersburg is noticeably superior to all the others. . Guillermo Abascal was able to greatly transform the team. The Red-Whites adapted to the new scheme, began to feel confident playing the first number, and Quincy Promes found a second youth. This is enough to score points with teams of a lower class, but it is still impossible to compete with a superior opponent. It seems that the change of ownership and the purchase by Lukoil did not allow the club to seriously turn around in the transfer market. Match with “Zenith” clearly showed the problematic positions of the team. A replacement for Samuel Gigot, who left for Lyon, was never found, and the support zone clearly lacks a “pit bull” that stops attacks in front of the penalty area. Nail Umyarov and Ruslan Litvinov right now are not ready to become a kind of Wilmar Barrios for Spartak. Other competitors do not yet look equal to Zenit either. CSKA is just starting its journey with Vladimir Fedotov, who scrupulously and methodically builds legionnaires into the squad, and the implementation of the army team is noticeably lame. Sochi cannot find a game after the departure of the coach and cope with the loss of legionnaires, and Krasnodar cannot make up for the departure of titled foreigners, the team is kept at the expense of the game of Eduard Spertsyan. And “Lokomotiv” can not get out of the peak, remaining at the bottom of the standings. “Zenith” lacks Dziuba “Zenith” can lose its brightest player for a month and continue to score points. The bench of the Semak team allows you to keep the level you need to win over opponents from the bottom and middle of the standings. The success is also influenced by the stability of the club, which has not changed its coach for a long time, from the outside watching the next restructuring of the rivals. But the “blue-white-blues” still have weaknesses. In the first half, the St. Petersburg team missed several great moments. The position of the central striker is still problematic for Semak. Mateo Cassierra has not yet adapted to the new team and has not yet fully won the competition from Ivan Sergeyev. Both forwards have already managed to make several offensive misses. If not for the suspension in European competition, then this problem would definitely have affected the performance in the Champions League. The team has not yet been able to survive the departure of Artem Dziuba. Although he received less playing time last season, he churned out goals consistently. And now there is no such finisher in the team, which leads to the loss of points in Grozny and Khimki. Problems with the forward remain a trifle against the background of the competitors' game, which so far falls noticeably below the level of Zenit. If «Spartak» and CSKA in a short time will not be able to somehow miraculously put the victory on stream, then we will again be waiting for the championship without intrigue. The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.
