It’s been announced that Andrey Mostovoy left the Russian team’s camp and returned to Zenit. How long is he going to be absent for and is there a chance for him to recover for when the season resumes?

Andrey still hasn’t arrived, he will be here tomorrow and then we’ll see how serious his injury is. As far as I know now, he would be able to recover for the official matches. Although we still have to confirm that. 

Friendly matches during international breaks are a usual thing for Zenit now. Though this pause turned out to be a bit longer due to the rescheduling of the league round. Did it increase the value of the upcoming friendly in terms of helping the players maintain their fitness levels?

I’d say it’s the other way around. We’ve just started the spring part of the season and now we have such a long international break. It certainly isn’t great for the team. Unfortunately, the match will be rescheduled to April, and the fixtures for this month already look tight for us, especially when we have to play on the third day after the previous match. Considering the traveling for these games, without a doubt it’s going to make things more complicated for us. Speaking of the matches during the international breaks, it’s a great opportunity for the footballers who don’t receive enough playing time in the league and in the Cup matches to show what they’re capable of and compete for a spot in the starting team. The international friendlies also strengthen the bond between the countries and the clubs. We’re happy to have an opportunity to visit Belgrade and face a great team.

Did you know that this round would be rescheduled when you were training in the winter, or was it completely unexpected?

We had no idea it would be rescheduled. We found out the fixtures for the next matches only a couple days ago when they were announced. We always wait until the last day. Without a doubt it’s not the most pleasant discovery, in my opinion there was a chance to align the dates to play this round without rescheduling it, but we’re not the ones making these decisions. 

Is facing Spartak in the Russian Cup twice good or bad?

That’s right, we have two more interesting matches ahead of us. It’s neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. We want to compete for the Russian Cup and we have to be ready to face any team. We’ll see what the future holds. Our main objective is to play and show what we’re capable of in order to achieve the aims we’ve set for ourselves. 

Vyacheslav Karavaev was absent for some time, he recovered and then got injured again. How is he feeling now and when is he going to be able to play again?

I hope that he’s going to be able to play on Saturday. We’ll see how ready he is, he’s an important part of our team. We’re waiting for him to be back and we’ll see what condition he’s in right now. Considering how tight the fixtures are for us now, we need all of the players that we have in the team. 

Ivan Sergeev and Mateo Cassierra are both in their national teams’ camps and both of them are center forwards. Who is going to take this position in the match against Crvena Zvezda? Will their absence change the formation?

We’ll see. I don’t think we’re going to change the formation. We’ll analyze the footballers who need more playing practice and then choose the formation we’re going to use. Speaking of the options for this position, we have enough players to take on this role, for example Isidor or Mantuan. I think Erokhin is also capable of playing on that position.

After the match against Dynamo the experts said that the referee did his job well, but you were coming up to the fourth official quite often. Would you say that the referee did a great job in that match or not?

It was fine. Both players and referees make mistakes sometimes. It’s clear that there were some errors. Barrios was shown a yellow card, but when there was the same foul on Claudinho, the opposing team’s player wasn’t penalized for it. There were a couple of these moments that made the stress levels go up. Another questionable thing was when we started a quick attack at the beginning of the match and the referee stopped the game, we had a similar moment later in the game and we were allowed to continue playing. Consistency is important. I wouldn’t say that these mistakes affected the outcome of the match though. Overall the referee did his job, but everybody makes mistakes occasionally. 

What are your expectations of the match against Crvena Zvezda? Will it be a special game in any way? How are you getting ready for this friendly? Do Russians and Serbians have special relationships in football?

I think there is a brotherly relationship, but it’s more of an international thing, not just football. It’s not just words that Serbians and Russians are bothers. It shows through everything, how we treat each other, each other’s countries and players. Football is not an exception. We’re glad to visit our brotherly country and we’re happy with the opportunity to face the leader of the Serbian league. It’s going to be an interesting trip to a brotherly country for us.