First of all it was important to win after such a heavy defeat, because we put ourselves in a difficult situation. This game had a strong emotional impact, especially as CSKA won before us. The most important thing was to win before the cup final and give us confidence. Of course we need others to lose points but we still must win. At the moment our job is done. There are some big games this weekend, Lokomotiv v Spartak and Mordovia v Rostov, we hope that will happen as there’s some strange things going on with Mordovia. We hope they will be there to compete for the win.
This was the first step from the remaining 5 fixtures, we have to continue and win our games and enjoy this good spirit.
Is it good the final is now or would it be better if the cup final was after the end of the season?
It’s an not ideal situation, but the game was originally booked late for the 30th of May but this is also not ideal, the fixture list is very compact so the game was moved into the festive period. It’s not an ideal solution of course, but it’s good for the people going to the national teams. The championship will be finished with the last game. Normally I think the cup game should be the last game played, but I think this is the best solution that could be found and is convenient for everybody, for the league and the national team. But CSKA and us are in the same position and in the same fight so I think we are playing in the same conditions.
Mauricio and Zhirkov didn’t start today, were they rested and will be ready for the final? And will the team rest tomorrow or train?
No we will won’t stop, we will train and recover the players and those who didn’t play. As for Yuri Zhirkov he missed the game through injury and we hope he will be fit for the final. Mauricio was on the bench so we could give Yusupov a game as he’s been training well. We missed Yuri so we had to make some changes due to the limit. We decided this and they played very well. Mimo (Criscito), Yusupov and Maurico played very well.
Today there’s information that Danny had his operation and there’s rumours that he will need another operation?
No it’s not true, you have to take the ligament from a different part of the body, it depends on the surgeon normally it can be created from the patella tendon or from another part of the body or the other knee, so it depends on the surgeon. We still have to wait for the knee to stabilize before surgery and we must choose the surgeon, it was not an operation, it was just an opening of the knee for the surgeon to examine the knee. This is normal.
A year ago, Arsenal Tula played their second team against CSKA you were not happy, what if Mordovia do this with Rostov on Sunday?
I had my reaction last season, my impact was those words. What can I do? This is something for the league and the minister of sport to deal with, Its from a problem of wages and stability of clubs, they are not the only club with this problems. I hope they will be able to play, this would mean a fair league.
Bogaev came on at the end of the match, was it planned or was Smolnikov injured?
No we wanted to give him some minutes, because he’s been really good in training and he hasn’t had so many chances, we had some young players on the bench who have done well for Zenit 2 and this is why we wanted to get him involved.
