Tuesday, August 20, 2013

2013-14 Matchweek 5 Recap: Rostov go top with Volga demolition

We're back with the first Matchweek Recap in 2 weeks and what a week! Anzhi's first match after the beginning of their firesale and some great performances in a few other games made this week one to watch. However, goals were somewhat hard to come by, as only Zenit and Rostov scored more than 1 goal from all of the matches this week.

Ural 0-0 Amkar
Ural and Amkar played out a goalless draw that I didn't have the misfortune to watch (although apparently it was more exciting than it sounds). From what I can tell, Ural countered Amkar's possession play and arguably deserved to edge it, but it was a mostly even match.

Zenit 3-0 Anzhi
Zenit brushed aside a weakened and collapsing Anzhi in a confident three goal win. Roman Shirokov opened the scoring after 25 minutes, before Hulk extended Zenit's lead just before the break. Zenit's new left back, Christian Ansaldi, completed the scoring 18 minutes from time to take the hosts into fourth place.

Terek 0-1 Lokomotiv
Lokomotiv were dominant, yet were held out time after time by a resilient Terek defence, and were forced to rely on a stoppage time winner from substitute Aleksandr Samedov to take the three points.

CSKA 1-0 Kuban
CSKA were the better side by virtue of a stellar performance from Alan Dzagoev, however finishing was poor for both sides and the hosts only won due to an Ahmed Musa goal in the 11th minute. Following this match, I decided that Dzagoev had put in possibly the best performance in the RPL this season, with the main competitor being Jose Manuel Jurado against Dynamo, however I didn't know how wrong I'd be come the end of the weekend.

Spartak 0-0 Rubin
Spartak had the upper hand in a match where Lucas Barrios made his debut and Salvatore Bocchetti suffered a seemingly serious injury mere minutes from time, however the game was largely uneventful otherwise and a goalless draw was a reasonable result for both sides.

Krylia 1-0 Tom
football formationsDespite going a man down when Ilya Maksimov was sent off in the 56th minute, Krylia completely outplayed Tom. Ibrahim Tsallagov scored just 5 minutes after Maksimov's departure for the only goal of the match and Krylia's first win of the season.

Krasnodar 1-1 Dynamo
Wanderson put the hosts a goal up in the 9th minute and it took Dynamo an entire match of dominance to get their equaliser. Substitute Andrei Panyukov scored in the 83rd minute to pull the scores level and neither side was able to make an impact in the remaining minutes.

Rostov 4-0 Volga
Rostov continued their spectacular start to the season with a four goal romping of Volga. Zhano Ananidze opened the scoring, before assisting Timofei Kalachev and Artem Dzyuba for the next two. Byung-Soo Yoo then scored the fourth minutes from full time. After thinking Alan Dzagoev's performance against Kuban was incredible, I was blown away by Ananidze's constant work rate and technical ability. Normally he has these things in abundance, but against Volga he took it to another level and it's nice to see such a young talent performing so well.

Table:
1 - Rostov
2 - Spartak
3 - CSKA
4 - Zenit
5 - Lokomotiv
6 - Dynamo
7 - Rubin
8 - Amkar
9 - Kuban
10 - Krylia
11 - Krasnodar
12 - Volga
13 - Ural
14 - Terek
15 - Anzhi
16 - Tom

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