Yesterday you said that you expect Malmo to attack and be aggressive. Why was your team not ready for this?
Why? We were ready. There were minimal chances in front of our goal, but unfortunately one chance allowed them to score.
Was this a fair result? What did their player say to you after the match?
I told him that I saw the incident for the second penalty, and in my opinion, it was definitely a penalty. He said that he had other complaints about the referee.
I think the result is fair. We could have won, or we could have lost, but overall it’s probably fair.
What's going on with Claudinho? He was subbed off in Ekaterinburg and today he picked up a silly yellow card and you then took him off.
The yellow card was one of the reasons for the substitution. Claudinho is still getting used to playing in Russia and isn’t always playing at an even level.
Did you consider bringing Sutormin on at some stage of the game?
This option was there but in my opinion, Karavaev was better prepared for the game.
Chistyakov did not look very confident in the first half and got a yellow card and could have had more. Why did you decide to replace Lovren and not him?
You are right, Chistyakov didn’t look as confident in the first half as usual. But we decided to keep him on because he’s better in the air and dealing with long balls. Rakitskiy was needed to develop attacks.
Zenit haven’t won in 16 away matches in Europe. Why is that?
We haven’t won often and this season have only won once at home. This is an unpleasant run for us when we haven’t deserved the win.
Why did Rakitskiy take the second penalty? Dzyuba seemed to be nominating Malcom. Will you remove Dzyuba from penalty duty?
Because Yaroslav was confident in taking it at a difficult time. Even though he missed the penalty Dzyuba is one of the top scorers in the team and has a good percentage of scored penalties. We’ll think about who will take them in the future.
The stadium was loud, journalists were even given earplugs. Did the atmosphere affect you? Was it difficult to get word to the players?
The fans today really supported their team. They were their 12th man and they make it much more difficult for any team to play here. This is exactly the atmosphere that makes football so loved.
Was the team mentally not ready today? Chistyakov, Wendel and Claudinho all seemed nervous. Can we say that Zenit has an issue with away matches?
It is not easy for us in the Russian league with away matches too, where we also have lost games. Working under pressure is a skill that you need to learn. We have some young players who find the pressure difficult. This is one of the reasons for our away failures.
