After the first friendly match you said that the game with Salzburg would provide more information for you, what are your thoughts after the match?
This game gave us more to think about. You can see straight away who’s in what condition and we were watching for certain things and got the information we were looking for. Although, today there were a lot of minus as well as positives. We could see that some had a tough time, for different reasons, but overall, we got a lot of information.
Several players did not play today, Lunev, Malcom, Kuzyaev and Azmoun, is there any reason for this?
Kuzyaev is not training with the first team yet. Malcom is still training but participating in the friendlies, we will see him play at the Spanish training camp as we planned. Regarding Azmoun, he’s got a minor knock so couldn’t take part today. Today we saw Rudakov, but Lunev will play in the upcoming games. Unfortunately, today we could use only the three goalkeepers.
How has the training camp been, did you get everything done that you planned?
Yes. Everything that we planned, we did. As for the training, everything went fine and without serious injuries. We are getting ready for the resumption of the season and there’s still a lot of time.
Have Salzburg started their season prep earlier and are now at a different stage of their readiness?
Salzburg did look fresher today. I don’t know much about the Austrian championship fixture list, every team have their own plans and levels of readiness. Yes, today they looked faster and livelier than us, but this is all part of the process of getting ready for the season, so we are not paying too much attention to this.
Will Islamkhan be joining Zenit in Benidorm or not?
Today we will discuss this with the club management and make a decision in the near future.
Do you like him as a player?
I think that when we think about the limit, we have to consider both Russian young players and those who are not regarded as foreigners. Look at Salzburg, there are only six Austrian players in their squad and the rest are from all over the world. Only six, and two of them are 30, only four players are their prime. We have the limit in our league and the rules for all teams are the same, so we have to follow them.
Zenit have two matches planned for Spain, against Dudelange and CSKA. Can we expect other friendly matches to be planned?
Yes, there will be more. We want to play with the whole squad so that as many players as possible get match practice. We are now looking for clubs to play against. I’m sure there will be more, not just the two.
