A question about Dmitry Chistyakov, what’s his injury status? He has not played in an official match since August will we see him before the winter break or are you considering him leaving, possibly on loan, in the winter or summer?
Dima Chistyakov has had a number of issues that have stopped him playing since August, about a month, and he was not able to fully train. Now he has no problems and is getting in shape. If he is ready, he will play. Today we’re not thinking about anyone leaving, on loan, or otherwise. He has the same situation as other players who are currently playing, or do not get enough playing practice. He will need to work hard and prove that he is the better option to play in his position.
As usual after the international break, what is the condition of the players who left? Will we see them all on Sunday?
We’ll see. We need to look at things, because some of the players who went, played and some didn’t. Three players will only join us for training today, so we have to talk to them and see what condition they are in and see how ready they are to play against Krylia. The rest have all trained fine and are ready.
Are you happy that not many Zenit players were selected by their national teams? There was only Ivan Sergeev for Russia. Or did you not expect many of your players to be called up by Russia as they don’t play in the league for Zenit that often?
I don’t think we were happy or unhappy and players leaving for their national teams is a reality. As for the number of players in the Russian national team, that’s up to the Russia manager, he decides who he selects. There are no positives or negatives here. We work our own way and get ready for the match. For a while we haven’t had many first team players there, Slava Karavaev, when fit, Daler Kuzyaev, when he was here, and Andrei Mostovoy sometimes. We haven’t had a large number of players with the national team for quite a long time.
Similar question to Andrey. What do you think has changed at Krylia this season? It seems that they haven’t bought anyone big, but they haven’t sold anyone either, and at the same time they are in doing very well compared to last season.
One thing has changed, results. Last year they played well and created chances, but for one reason or another the results didn’t come. They found themselves in a difficult situation fighting for survival, which is difficult psychologically. We played them a lot last year and every match was quite difficult. They have some experienced players, foreigners, around whom the team is being built. Plus their young Russian players are talented. They like to play on the counterattack, and we need to prepare to deal with their counterattacks. Because most teams, almost all, play deep defensively, and try to take advantage of our mistakes with a quick attack. This is something we need to work on.
There’s been rumours of Zenit’s interest in Krylia’s Benjamín Garré, what do you think of him as a player? Could he end up at Zenit someday?
He is talented, but we absolutely do not comment on rumors. A lot of things get said and often about Zenit in one aspect or another. But we’ll make absolutely no comments here. We are getting prepared for the game. '
Today is a special date, 14 years ago today Rubin Kazan beat Barcelona and you were the team’s captain then. How important are such dates for you? Do you sometimes like to remember those days? Can you tell us anything about that match?
As for the actual game, no, I don’t remember it. But my memories of the result are nice. Of course Barcelona are one of the best teams you can ever played against and it’s great that Rubin were able to win. The manager Kurban Berdyev was the main reason for the win.
