Expectation score: the main intrigues of the 23rd round of the RPL

The next round of the Russian Football Championship resumes the season after a pause for the national team games and promises several bright confrontations at once. Having slowed down, Lokomotiv will try to take revenge in the match with Spartak, probably without its leader. Krasnodar, without captain Eduard Spertsyan, will test the strength of the unyielding Akhmat, and Zenit intends to spoil the debut of the new head coach of Krylia Sovetov. For more information, see the Izvestia article.

Spartak – Lokomotiv: will Batrakov make it in time

Before the break for the national teams, Loko sensationally crashed out of the Cup, and Nikolay Komlichenko admitted that after that a conversation with the management took place in raised tones. The previous defeat from Rubin on the road launched a wave of talk that the railwaymen had sailed and were unlikely to take part in the fight for the championship. But it's still too early for such opinions: Lokomotiv is five points behind Krasnodar, a gap that can be easily won back, especially with eight more rounds ahead.

However, in half of them the red-green team will have to face serious rivals: Zenit, Dynamo, CSKA and now Spartak. Is it worth saying that you need to approach the derby in the most combat condition? And a lot will depend on whether Alexey Batrakov has time to recover. The footballer's agent, Vladimir Kuzmichev, says he has to.

Spartak is increasingly relying on the level of Ezequiel Barco, who has become the best player in March and is rumored to receive an improved contract extension soon. Ezequiel is really in great shape, scoring four points in the last five rounds. But Jedson Fernandes is somehow indecently silent for a long time: the assist in the October match with Orenburg is his last productive action in the league.

In general, it should be a meeting where everything will be decided by the creative teams. Whichever one turns out to be brighter and more productive will tip the scales on one side or the other. Making other predictions is risky. Especially after the break for the national teams.

"Whoever says they don't look at the chart is lying"

Lokomotiv football player Artyom Karpukas — about the struggle for leadership in the RPL and the reasons for failures in recent matches

Akron – CSKA Moscow: two problematic teams

A pause for national team matches is a controversial thing. It helps someone, but it puts a stick in someone's wheels. For Akron and CSKA, it should be an absolute boon — it's a chance to reboot after a nightmarish restart of the season. It's a striking difference from the painting we saw in the fall.

The army men don't look absolutely disgusting — you can see that the Celestini system is somehow working, but it works: the flanks are active, they manage to impose their game in the center of the field. But the greasy minus is discipline. Constant deletions (including the head coach himself), unnecessary fouls, disruptions. It got to the point where one of the team leaders, Moises, had a fight with the head coach. The conflict seems to have been resolved now, but it is an alarming signal.

Things aren't much better at Akron. Tolyatti players finished tenth in the winter break, scoring the same number of points as Dynamo. They are currently one step away from the play-off zone, having scored only one point in the last six rounds. Yes, Tedeev is playing more and more young players, and the results may suffer from this. Plus, the team is clearly not getting enough points in the spring — just one instead of 4.5 expected. But at such moments, veterans Dzyuba and Nedelcharu should lead the others.

Let's see what the work of both teams will lead to in the last two weeks, when there was a chance to reboot.

Akhmat vs Krasnodar: without Spertsyan

But the one who is gaining more points than expected so far is Akhmat. According to Understat, the Grozny team should have scored only three points in the last four rounds instead of eight real ones. Stanislav Cherchesov's team has really learned how to squeeze results out of meetings where it doesn't look better than the opponent, and this is an excellent quality for an average player. In the previous six rounds, Akhmat only lost points twice and never lost, won matches against Dynamo and CSKA, and made it 2-2 with Lokomotiv. So Krasnodar is sure to have big problems, and the leader of the tour may well change.

Moreover, Eduard Spertsyan will probably be absent due to injury, plus we need to see in what condition John Cordoba returned after leaving for the Colombian national team. It's time for newcomer Juan Boselli, who moved from Paris NN in the winter, to prove himself. So far, the Argentine has been playing mainly as a substitute, but now a lot can really depend on him. Krasnodar has always relied on a strong core of leaders, it's time to demonstrate the power of the bench. It's going to be so difficult in the championship race without her.

Departure flight: Krasnodar defeated CSKA

The removal of the defender buried the Army team in the "RPL Path" of the Russian Cup, Spartak is on the verge of repeating their fate.

Zenit – Krylia Sovetov: when the legionnaires wake up

But Sergei Semak had much less opportunity to influence the situation during the break. The reason is the large number of collections. Especially from Latin America. Zenit has always been and remains the strongest club in Russia. Everything is more or less good with the results, there is an exit to the second stage of the semi-finals of the Path of the Regions (we are waiting for the battle with Spartak), the gap from the leading Krasnodar in the RPL is only one point. And the only defeat after the restart, 1:2 from Orenburg, was rather outright bad luck.

The question is, what about the stable quality of the game? Where are the preferences that the presence of such masters as Luis Enrique, John John and John Duran should have given in the roster? I can still see the performances of Hulk and Witsel, much cooler players who gave themselves 100% to the job. This cannot be said about the current Zenit newcomers yet. It's time to accelerate, and Krylia Sovetov is a suitable opponent for this. Samaritans recently broke up with Magomed Adiev, and it looks like a gesture of desperation. Why not put an end to the pause for the national teams, giving the new coach Sergey Bulatov time to settle in? There are a lot of questions, and, as often happens in our football, there are so few logical answers.

Dynamo – Orenburg: a chance to get back on track

Dynamo has received many well-deserved flattering ratings for its "volatility" in the spring. The defeats of Spartak and CSKA forced us to talk about a reboot of the team, which frankly did not realize its potential under Valery Karpin. But now Rolan Gusev, the best coach in March, has to prove that the fast jump was not a coincidence. Moreover, questions have already begun to appear — and if the defeat against Spartak in the Cup (0:1) can still be attributed to the fact that everything was decided in the first game, then the blue and white lost to Zenit absolutely to the point (1:3).

It will definitely be easier with Orenburg: the team scored only four points away this season and looks confident only on its native synthetic. Well, we continue to monitor Timofey Marinkin's progress. At Dynamo, he is already being compared to Arsen Zakharyan. Perhaps the analogies still look far-fetched, but the guy is really amazingly talented. At the age of 17, it's worth a lot to win the competition from Glebov's collection.