"Lost points where it shouldn't be done"

On Thursday, as part of the quarterfinals of the "RPL Way" of the Russian Football Cup, the first match in the confrontation between Spartak Moscow and Lokomotiv will take place. Loko is in fifth place in the Russian championship, five points behind the leading Krasnodar. At the same time, only last week, in the 14th round, the railwaymen were defeated for the first time in the current championship, losing to Zenit St. Petersburg with a score of 0:2.

In an interview with Izvestia, Lokomotiv midfielder Artyom Karpukas commented on the team's recent results, discussed the disappointing loss of points, and also spoke about his reaction to the recent incident with Zenit and Russian national team midfielder Andrei Mostov, who survived an attempted kidnapping by a group of people.

— The match against Zenit was the worst result for Loko in the current championship. Can it be called the worst in terms of game quality?

— I probably can't call it the worst after all. We've had worse games. But, of course, I cannot call the meeting with Zenit the best or even one of the best.

— Can we say that we lost the match without any options, that we could have saved ourselves from defeat only by some luck and a crazy goal?

— We really didn't have many moments to implement something. There were approaches to someone else's goal, from which we could squeeze certain moments. But, unfortunately, it didn't work out to score a goal.

— Did the absence of the injured Dmitry Vorobyov and the disqualified Cesar Montes have a big impact?

— More Pini (Sergey Pinyaev. — Izvestia) and Moroz (Evgeniya Morozova. — "Izvestia") was not.

— Yes, but we have already got used to Pinyaev's absence — he has not played a single full match this season due to injuries.

— It's still a pity — we miss him. Of course, all the mentioned losses reduce the number of players. Probably, the same Vorobyov was missing, especially in the form he is in now. They are paired with Komli (Nikolay Komlichenko. — Izvestia) They could have come up with something at Zenit's goal that worked out in previous matches. We didn't have enough variability ahead. And Pinya would definitely have created something. We didn't have enough attacking players to create and implement something based on individual skill.

— Lokomotiv lost eight points in matches against teams from the bottom of the table in a very disappointing way — they missed victories in the last minutes in games with Rostov (3:3), Krylia Sovetov (2:2) and Dynamo Makhachkala (1:1), and recently drew with Akron (1-1) due to the fact that he did not realize a lot of chances. Are there any fears that such misfires will come out sideways at the end of the season?

— This is already going sideways. It is clear that any loss of points goes sideways. It doesn't matter who you beat or don't beat. For all wins, you get three points — no more and no less. The most annoying thing is that we won all the derbies and just matches with direct competitors, except for the last one with Zenit, and we lost points where it shouldn't be done.

— What is the reason for this? Don't you have enough killer instinct to take chances and not miss the endings in matches against the average and outsiders?

— Each match has its own separate story. And in every match, we lacked something specific. But the situations were always different. Yes, we could have played differently somewhere. Remembering those matches where we lost points, it seems that we should have acted differently. But it's hard to talk about it after the fact.

— Do you believe that the championship is still possible after such misfires?

— How many points do we have behind the first place?

"Five."

— It's being recouped. Everything is being recouped.

— In the match with you, Andrei Mostovoy celebrated his goal wearing a black mask, which meant an ironic reference to the recent story of his failed abduction in St. Petersburg. How did you react when you found out about this?

— To be honest, I didn't even understand what it was. I've seen the news about it, but only briefly. I still don't really understand what happened. When we finished warming up before the match, I went up to the Bridge and asked what it was. He replied that everything was fine. And that's the most important thing, that everything ended well for him.

— Are there any fears that now all football players with the same level of fame as you and Mostovoy will have to walk down the street with guards?

"I hope not."