"Slišković brought to the team attempts to play in the Spartak style"

The Orenburg players left for the winter break in the season in an extremely difficult situation. They are in the last, 16th place in the Russian championship after 18 rounds, six points behind the saving 14th line. After starting the tournament in the summer with a 2-0 home win over Spartak Moscow in the first round, the team has not scored a single win in the RPL since then. In the spring, it will have only 12 rounds to save itself from relegation.

In an interview with Izvestia, Orenburg player Stepan Oganesyan shared his opinion on the reasons for the team's crisis, assessed whether the summer scandal with the club's former sports director Dmitry Andreev, who received a one-year disqualification (and two years suspended) for insulting referees, had an impact on the team, and also commented on the game of his former club Spartak.

"A lot of young guys, still getting used to each other".

- At the expense of what "Orenburg" will save themselves from relegation from the RPL in the spring?

- I will say banally: at the expense of points, at the expense of victories (smiles).

- What do you need to do to get more points than before the winter break?

- You just need to prepare well and go to every game as if it were the last one. Due to this we can earn points, win. I think we can do it all, everything is real.

- You started the season with a convincing victory over Spartak (2:0), and from the outside nothing seemed to foreshadow problems in the championship. When and why did things go wrong?

- It's hard to say at what point. In connection with what? It is also hard to answer. Probably, a series of events influenced. We drew where we could have won. We lost where we could have drawn. So we lost points, in general, in our matches somewhere. Stupid loss of points, and then we couldn`t turn it around and got stuck at the bottom. Plus the team is inexperienced - a lot of young guys, they were still getting used to each other. Maybe that played a role. It's hard to find a single reason.

- About the team I would like to clarify. In principle, last season you already had an experience of successful struggle for survival - after a failed start Orenburg eventually retained a place in the RPL without transition matches. Who from that squad is missing now in terms of experience?

- Probably older guys. Misha Sivakov, Vladimir Poluyakhtov, who is now a coach. Guys who have already been in such bad situations and got out of them. They have a lot of experience behind them due to the fact that they have played at different levels in their careers and know how to deal with such situations. They have something behind them. And they would help us.

- In hindsight, did Lucas Vera's departure to Khimki have an impact?

- Lucas is a good player anyway. It's hard to say whether his departure had an impact or not. In some games we may have missed him. In some, on the contrary, we do well without him. For Khimki it's 100% reinforcement.

- Did the story of Dmitry Andreev's disqualification affect the results?

- It's hard to say. It's clear that everyone was watching it, worried. We understand his emotions, but at the same time we know that there are regulations and consequences of everything that happened. But did it affect the team's game? Hardly. Everyone in Orenburg is a professional. Regardless of what happens there, you have to go out on the field and give your best.

"The ball is round, so everything is possible".

- In winter, the club changed its management. Have you already talked to the new president Kirill Volzhenkin and the new sports director Ismail Ibragimov?

- There have been no meetings yet. I think now, in the next few days, will be our first meeting. We will discuss the tournament situation in general and what are our objectives. And then we will get used to each other.

- What new things did the head coach Vladimir Slishkovich bring to the team after his October appointment in Orenburg?

- It's hard, perhaps, to single out something separate. Each coach brings his own parts of the game. Slishkovic brought attempts to play first, ball control, everything in the Spartak style - short and medium passes.

- Your season resumes with an away match against Spartak. If he will be in the same condition as in the second half of the fall, when he thrashed everyone in the championship, will you have a chance to take points in this game?

- There are no invincible teams. Any team can be beaten. The ball is round, so everything is possible.

- Is there an explanation why Dejan Stankovic's Spartak lost to you at the beginning of the season, and then in October they transformed so much that they crushed everyone for the next two months?

- They have a good selection of players, so I'm not surprised by their success. Why didn't it work at the beginning of the season? Probably because the new head coach had just arrived. Then the players understood him, and Stankovic himself studied the team in more detail. Because of that, they had a synergy, and a very good one at that - everyone can see it.

- Does this Spartak remind you of Domenico Tedesco's Spartak, in which you trained and came on as a substitute in one of the RPL matches?

- Maybe, partly. But still, I think it's different soccer, different message of soccer.

- Do you think about what you will do in case of relegation from the RPL? Will you stay in "Orenburg" in the first league or try to find options in the Premier League?

- It's hard to say what I will do. I try not to think about it. We will solve all these problems as they come, but I think that we will succeed, we will fix everything.