Doesn't shine

I would like to be a bad prophet, but Zenit’s February campaign in the Champions League may not be successful. The coach has lost contact with the team and has no influence on the managers.

For a long time now I have been following the adventures of my native Zenit on the football fields with bitterness and bewilderment. After all, it would seem that both the players are skilled, and the coach is not of the latest analysis, and there is still no game that could bring pleasure. I'm not even talking about the latest results in the national championship. And the trouble is not only in the defensive lines, which have long ago turned into a passing yard for the enemy - as long as he does not have psychological fear: of course, Zenit itself... I was amused by G. Orlov’s comment at the game with Rostov: he said, that Rostov's crosses from the flanks are a sharp weapon for the Rostovites... And in my opinion, crosses from the flanks from any opponent pose a mortal danger for Zenit, because its defense loses aerial duels much more often than it wins (the exact data could probably I would like to bring A. Bubnov). We remember that Bruno Alves was a master of heading the ball, but for some reason he was sold... And when they sold him, did you think about it?

In my opinion, after the scandalous departure of Igor Denisov, the supporting zone, the rest of the midfield, and even the seemingly quite successful attack with Prime Hulk are playing mediocrely. Somehow all this happens strainedly, as if fairly good, technical football players are not playing for pleasure, but are doing some kind of hateful work that is boring them to death... All the team’s actions in attack consist of a large number of lateral passes in the area between the central circle and the opponent's penalty area and extremely rare escalating forward passes. It’s good if Arshavin, Shirokov, or the long-injured Danny, who are in good shape, are present on the field and wield such weapons. Lately, sometimes the Hulk dares to make such a pass, but most often he tries to beat or push through two, and sometimes three or four defenders. It is clear that little can come of this...

Lately, I have been seeing more and more often how midfielders, having received a hand pass from the goalkeeper and fiddling with the ball in the center circle, return it to the defender, and he, without hesitation, gives it back to the goalkeeper, who launches the ball into the white light with a strong blow, like a pretty penny, hoping that one of ours will scratch him out in the fight on the second floor... And this despite the fact that none of our attacking midfielders or forwards who actually play are distinguished by the height of a grenadier, and with the choice of position for playing at the top, ours players also have serious problems... The question is: why is the ball returned to the goalkeeper, for what purpose? There is no answer. There are a few tricks in football tactics that players know well and try to adhere to: for example, if a full-back goes on the attack, then the ball, as a rule, should be addressed to him - long idle runs are not very beneficial for the defender, and he can also counterattack yawn if not directly involved in a game episode. It’s the same here - if the goalkeeper passes the ball with his hand to the player’s move, you must definitely try to get it to the front line. Returning the ball to the goalkeeper so that he can put it into play in a standard way, in which the probability of your players gaining possession of the ball is at least half as high, is possible only in the most difficult cases, for example, when there is severe total pressure from the opponent on your half of the field.

It has always been believed that Zenit's midfield is not only the strongest line in the team, but also in Russian football. However, recent matches show that even teams that are far from top level have learned to beat her.

In my opinion, the main problem of the team is its management. It is absolutely obvious to any unbiased observer that as a team, our beloved sharp and creative Zenit ended when Hulk and Witsel were “stuffed” into the team. They acquired them, literally, at the very last moment before the transfer window closed and immediately, without giving any time for adaptation, they were thrown into important battles of the Champions League that had begun. Of course, the sums spent on their acquisition and stay in the team exceed all reasonable limits, and the time that has passed since then has clearly shown that all the hopes of the hapless selectors turned out to be nothing - the team strengthened by these players is not capable of taking on any serious tasks. Moreover, the conditions for these truly high-class (this primarily applies, of course, to the Hulk) players caused attacks of acute irritation among the old-timers of the team who created “that” beloved Zenit, which ended almost in a strike of several players and the departure of one of the key ones - Igor Denisov. The relationship between the “rebels” remaining on the team and the head coach, willy-nilly, turned out to be greatly damaged, which, of course, still affects the quality of the game.

It seems to me that as a result of this conflict it became clear that at Zenit the coach does not have a decisive influence on the work of the managerial pool. But what kind of “decisive” is there... It seems that there is simply none... If in the first year of Luciano Spalletti’s work the results were visible to the naked eye: the defensive line was significantly strengthened (and it, as you know, is fundamental in any team: I myself have repeatedly heard from one of our best coaches V.V. Lobanovsky, that football begins with defense). The middle line, as always, acted reliably and stably, and there was no need to complain about the attack - Arshavin’s absence was fully compensated for by Danny’s technique and brilliant combinational vision of the game and the sharpness of the full-backs’ play.

However, recently everything has changed dramatically, and now the attentive observer has the dominant feeling that the coach has lost not only contact with the players, but also the ability to manage the team’s performance. The question is, what is the use of the speedy and once very interesting winger Volodya Bystrov entering the field in the 82nd minute - after all, he needs to get into the game, feel the ball, run up... Will you have time to do all this in the 5-7 minutes that remain before end of the match? We all remember how much trouble Zenit got from him when he played for Spartak - in fact, all the matches lost to Spartak were “made” by Bystrov. And now the not yet aged player V. Bystrov has settled so tightly “on the bench” that he is about to leave the team. But he is a native St. Petersburger, of whom there are “one or two too many” in the team and is not yet “age-wise.”

And with the age in the team it’s just a problem: we didn’t have enough of Anyukov, Zyryanov and Kerzhakov, who were once very useful and did a lot for the team, who are already over 30, so the team also took Timoshchuk and Arshavin, whom, as far as I understand, Spalletti didn’t for which he would not take it of his own free will... The difference in selection work with the same, for example, CSKA is striking: they find very young and untested guys, buy them inexpensively, test them and after a few years they earn good money on them. This is probably because the army team’s sponsors are not Gazprom with Miller and Dyukov... It is completely unclear why they missed the same Ailton, why they didn’t pick up very good players after the collapse of Anzhi - the same Diarra and Boussoufou, where the promised Glushakov and Kokorin, how will we eliminate the holes in the defense?..

Summing up, we can say with confidence that with such a management team, with this very good coach, but who has lost contact with the team and authority, and with such a composition, Zenit will have nothing to gain either in the European arena or, it seems, in the Russian championship . We must think that in the off-season the team will seriously strengthen itself, but if this is done as “skillfully” as with Hulk, Witsel, Tymoshchuk and Arshavin, then nothing good awaits us. Obviously, serious changes are needed at the conservatory...

It is clear that Zenit’s participation in the mini-tournament in Israel was not intended to perform well there or even definitely win - this is just one of the stages of preparation. But the game shown there, to put it mildly, was not at all impressive. On the contrary, it highlighted even more clearly and clearly those flaws described above. Despite the fact that individual players now look much better than at the end of the season (primarily Andrei Arshavin, as well as Criscito and Ansaldi), there is no interesting team play and, it seems, is not expected. And at the end of February we will begin the Champions League games... God forbid I turn out to be a bad prophet, but, apparently, this trip to the League will turn out to be as unsuccessful as the previous ones. Or maybe it is necessary to change not only the management at Zenit, but also the coach - progress in his work with the team has not been seen for a long time.