Sergei Semak: "We are not concerned about the weather conditions"

The Zenit boss spoke to the media ahead of the away trip to Rubin Kazan.
Sergei Semak: "We are not concerned about the weather conditions"

How are preparations for the match against Rubin?

This week it seems to have been quite some time since our last game and we’ve had some unusual changes in training, but overall, our preparations have been as expected in these tough winter conditions. It's now spring, but the quality of the pitches haven’t got better yet. I think all teams are dealing with the same issues now.

Is there any news on Malcom and Sebastian Driussi’s injury conditions?

There is nothing new to report. They are training on individual programmes.

Kazan, played their match in Moscow and then flew to Turkey for training. Did you think about doing the same?

No, we did not. We need to play and train in the same conditions and flying weekly is not easy, so we decided to train at home.

Rubin started the season with a confident away win over Spartak. What are the main treats of Leonid Slutsky's team?

They play well and are an attacking side, they are very good at quick attacks and their main player in these attacks is Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. He looks very good and a lot of their treats come through him. Also from Makarov, Bakaev and Despotovic, who scores a lot in this league. They’ve got a lot of attacking strengths. In defence, they have players who are good quality and experience, even by European standards. 

They also have some players out, Oleg Shatov and Oliver Abildgaard will not play in this match. Is this a plus for Zenit?

They have their missing players and we have ours. This league does not allow anyone to play with their preferred first XI and when it does happen, it’s very, very rare. Every coach has to change something before every game. 

It will be very cold with snow in Kazan on Monday and Zenit have not played in such conditions for a long time. Are you worried about this?

No, we are not concerned. We train every day in such conditions and have no problems with this.

Are the foreign players ready for this weather?

They train in such weather so of course they are ready to play. 

Are you analysing your opponent from their win against Spartak or your own games from your first defeat or the last game against Rostov?

We analyse all matches. We use all our recent games for analysis, and if we need it, we can take some moments from our first match. We have all that information. We will look at all the moments from those games, and when preparing and analysing, result are not of paramount importance for us. The main thing is the quality of the game and the number of chances, created and conceded.