Despite an embarrassing Europa League defeat to Cypriot minors AEK Larnaca, and the following dismissal of head coach Dmitry Alenichev, Spartak Moscow have started the season in a surprisingly good manor and they are currently leading the Russian Football Premier League with 19 points after eight games. The Red-Whites of Moscow have furthermore scored 14 goals, which is the second-highest in the league, bested only by Zenit St. Petersburg, and just conceded three, and shows that bringing in Massimo Carrera, an Italian defense specialist, was a good move by club owner Leonid Fedun.
However, despite all these impressive numbers, things are not as happy as one might think at Otkritie Arena. Last week, the Red-Whites lost another chance of winning their first trophy since 2003 as they suffered a humiliating loss to FNL minors SKA Khabarovsk in the Far East, despite bringing their entire first team to the game. The defeat meant the Muscovites travelled more than 6,000 kilometers without anything to show for it.
The Red-Whites followed up the poor performance by losing 1-0 at Otkritie Arena to Ufa last weekend, which was the first defeat in the league this season. The game against Ufa showed that Spartak are far from invincible, and it was the culmination of a series of bad games, where Spartak only pulled away with victories due to their talent on the last third of the pitch.
And Spartak certainly has talent on the pitch. Compared to the last couple of seasons under Alenichev and Murat Yakin, Carrera’s side is more competitive thanks to the rejuvenation of Jano Ananidze, the return of Salvatore Bocchetti and Serdar Tasci and the addition of Brazilian midfielder Fernando as well as Russian international Roman Zobnin.
Spartak are defensively strong, and the addition of Fernando allows wing-backs Dmitry Kombarov and Andrey Eschenko to roam forward as he brings some much needed stability to the midfield. Further up the pitch, the men who make things happen are obviously Dutch international Quincy Promes as well as before-mentioned Jano Ananidze.
Promes is rightly considered one of the best players in Russia, if not the best player after Hulk’s departure, and needs no introduction. The interesting player is Jano Ananidze. The 23-year-old Georgian was for a long time considered one of the brightest young talents in Eastern Europe, and has over the years been linked with some of the biggest clubs in the world. However, after a promising start to his Spartak career, he fell into obscurity as he failed to live up to the expectations, and in 2013, he was sent on loan at Rostov, together with Artyom Dzyuba. The last two season’s he has spent most of his time on the bench, but this season he has already scored four goals in the league, thus beating his personal record after just receiving playing time in five games due to injuries. This could therefore very well be the breakout season we have waited for from the little winger since he made his debut for Spartak in 2009.
For the match against Zenit, Spartak will have to do without defenders Evgeniy Makeev and Dmitry Kombarov and midfielder Aleksandr Zuev, but on the bright side Lorenzo Melgarejo and Andrey Eschenko returned to practice earlier this week.
Toke is the editor-in-chief over at Russian Football News, check out the site to find out what's going on in Eastern Europe's top league.
