Orenburg block: Spartak slowed down in the championship race

The main sensation of the last sixth round of the RPL football was the home draw of Spartak Moscow with Orenburg (1:1). Now the red and white are already five points behind the leading Krasnodar, who beat Rostov at home (1-0). Meanwhile, Lokomotiv suffered another defeat in the Moscow derby, this time from Dynamo (0:1). The Railwaymen still have not won a single victory and occupy the 14th place.

Spartak — Orenburg

The Orenburg team started the season well, but so far they have not been able to convert a high-quality game into a result. The wards of Ildar Akhmetzyanov have gained a foothold in the middle of the standings, which can already be considered progress compared to the struggle for survival in the RPL in the previous three seasons. At the same time, the team's players complain that they could have scored more points in the game.

They started the championship with a strong—willed home victory over Rostov (2:1), then lost to Zenit (0:3), after which they drew three times in a row - away with Rubin (1:1), at home with Lokomotiv (1:1) and away with the "Torch" (0:0). In Kazan, Orenburg did not realize many chances, and in Moscow and Voronezh they did not score penalties that could have brought victory.

And now the team has come to visit Spartak, which had previously won five out of six matches in the championship, losing points only at home with the leading Krasnodar (1:2). A round earlier, the red and white won against Zenit (2:0). And the good quality of the game marked the claims to the championship.

But from the very beginning, things were not going well with Orenburg. In the 8th minute, Manfred Ugalde's goal was not counted due to offside. And then Spartak could not create anything at the gates of the guests for a long time. It was only towards the end of the first half, and especially at the beginning of the second half, that Carlos Carcedo's men began to rock the opponent's defense.

They even began to have dangerous moments, but Orenburg was saved by goalkeeper Bogdan Ovsyannikov, who became one of the heroes of the match. And in the 66th minute, the guests managed to take advantage of a mistake by Spartak's defense, and Ruslan Kul opened the scoring.

10 minutes later, the ball hit his hand in the penalty area, and the referee awarded a penalty, from which Mirlin Dacu equalized the score. Spartak didn't have enough for more. Now they are five points behind, and Zenit and CSKA are just one point behind.

"I think we deserved at least a draw in this match, and I'm glad we were able to achieve this result," Bogdan Ovsyannikov told Izvestia. — Although I wanted to win. We acted to the maximum of our capabilities, in an organized manner and with dedication. And naturally we achieved a draw away from such a strong opponent as Spartak. Overall, we have a good start to the season, we can rate it as a four—minus, but we could have done better - two missed penalties in games against Lokomotiv and Fakel are still very offensive. And they could have won against Rubin.

"We need to approach recruitment correctly and carefully"

Lokomotiv head coach Mikhail Galaktionov talks about the club's behavior in the transfer market after the loss of key players and the team's morale after a poor start to the season.

Lokomotiv — Dynamo (Moscow)

A little over a week has passed since two key players left Lokomotiv — attacking midfielder Alexei Batrakov, who left for Istanbul Galatasaray, and central midfielder Artem Karpukas, who joined Zenit. A round earlier, the derby with CSKA was lost 2:3 in conditions when the "railwaymen" only trained for a few days without both of them and did not have time to rebuild.

In addition, the rookie of the team, midfielder Sergei Babkin, had only one training session before the game with the Army. Before the Dynamo derby, Loko already had a whole week to play new sets. However, there was no noticeable improvement in the red-green game.

However, Dynamo also played extremely primitive. In part, this can be attributed to the fact that shortly before the meeting, key striker Konstantin Tyukavin was out due to injury. Although even before that, the blue and white played with fluctuations.

So in the last match, the teams didn't create too many chances and acted until the first mistake. It was allowed by Lokomotiv. In the 71st minute, Cesar Montes kicked Yaroslav Gladyshev in his penalty area. The referee awarded a penalty, scored by Maxim Osipenko.

Sandro Schwartz's team calmly brought the game to victory and rose to sixth place. They are eight points behind the first place. Lokomotiv is still in 14th place in the transition zone with three points. Being on the 15th line, that is, in the direct relegation zone from the RPL, Tolyatti Akron, Mikhail Galaktionov's wards, with equal points, are ahead only in additional indicators.

There were six more matches in the last round. Akron drew with CSKA Moscow at home. Zenit snatched an away victory over Fakel Voronezh (1-0) from the penalty spot in the last minutes. Krasnodar minimally beat Rostov at home (1-0). Baltika defeated the Moscow Rodina (3:0). Akhmat played a productive draw with Krylia Sovetov on its own field (3:3). Rubin won 3-1 at home against Dynamo Makhachkala.