Sergei Semak: “I’m glad the substitutes made the winning goal”

The Zenit manager’s words on the win against Khimki.
Sergei Semak: “I’m glad the substitutes made the winning goal”
“The match was difficult, especially in the second half, that might be because we were making too many simple mistakes where we shouldn’t have. We had a few good chances in the first half, but today we were lacking quality a little bit, both in the first and in the second half when we had great opportunities to score the third goal to stop worrying about the result. We had good chances, Daler missed and Gustavo hit the post. The match could’ve finished on this note, but we conceded a goal, so we started to get nervous and made a mistake that lead to the penalty, but that’s why we love football. No matter how the game is going, anything can turn it the other way around and very fast too. I’m glad the substitutes made the winning goal that brought us this important win. I want to congratulate the fans, I think it was interesting and enjoyable to watch the match with so many goals from their point of view. Though you can’t say the same about the coaching staff, these matches take too much energy.”

Why was Ivan Sergeev absent today?

“Unfortunately he has a muscle injury and picked it up last week during the training session, so he wasn’t able to help us today. We’re also waiting on information about Barrios’s injury to see how much time it will take for him to recover. If we add the players who were suspended for Cup matches, the next game will be very important for us and quite difficult as well.”