MOSCOW, Jan 25 Head coach of St. Petersburg football club «Zenit» Sergei Semak said that striker Artem Dzyuba took the position of a central defender in a friendly match with the Slovak «Zilina» due to personnel problems. The meeting took place on Tuesday and ended with the victory of the Russian club with a score of 5:0. In the middle of the second half, Dzyuba, who became the author of the first goal, took the place of Danila Khotulev in the position of a central defender. «We have a large group of central defenders who dropped out at these training camps,» said Semak, who was quoted by the official Zenit website. «I don't know how ( Nuraly) Alip still played today for 90 minutes with almost no preparation. Our other three central defenders could not take part, so Khotulev had a huge load. He felt a spasm of the adductor muscle, and we had two options: either (Dalera) Kuzyaeva or Dziuba They chose Artem. «I asked him (Dziuba), looked at the condition of the guys. He asked, of course, if he had the strength. In my opinion, today Artem has more strength than Daler «Therefore, I think it's good that it was Artem who came out to finish the match in this position. Except for one moment (Dzyuba) he played quite confidently. In the end, of course, the intensity is already lower, because today it was very hot. It is difficult to support keep a good pace throughout the match. Zenit will play their next friendly matches in February at a training camp in Portugal.
