Oleg Shatov: "We knew that the sooner we score, the quicker Rubin would open up"

The Zenit and Russia midfielder on the demolition of Rubin Kazan.

In the first half, Rubin came at us and gave us a fight in every section of the pitch, they played a high defensive line and so we tried to play wide and create chances. We knew that the sooner we score, the quicker Rubin would open up, because they are an attacking team and they try to get back in the game. So space opened up and things happened


What did Sergey Semak say during the half time break? How did things change?

He said to continue in the same way, not to slow down the pace and that we will definitely score if we keep on attacking in the same way. We put pressure on in all areas of the pitch and I think we followed his instructions. We scored goals and played some high-quality attacking football in the second half.

You scored again today, tell us about the goal.

In the second half there were times when I lost the ball twice in a row, If I was the manager I’d have taken me off! (laughs). But I stayed on the pitch and knew I needed to get things together. As for my goal, I really wanted to score, even when it was 3-0, Dzyuba wanted it too, Mak took a shot, I connected with it, it hit the bar and went in! The most important thing is the goal counted! Decisions went against us more than once today.