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6/1 Double on Russian Super Sunday. Artur Petrosyan’s prediction
It’s a Super Sunday coming up in the Russian Premier League, where two big games can dramatically influence the outcome of the title race. In one of the country’s oldest derbies title favourites CSKA host Dinamo, and surprise package of the season FC Rostov welcome Zenit St.Petersburg to Olimp-2.
CSKA Moscow – Dinamo Moscow
Dinamo are the only Russian club to never be relegated. They took part in the inaugural Soviet championship in 1936, won it and have taken part in every one of the USSR and then Russian top division seasons ever since. Now, 80 years on, they could finally face the drop from Russia’s premier division. This downgrade in fortunes comes after a 180-degree turn in club policy, when it was decided to stop buying star players like Matthieu Valbuena, Chris Samba and Yuri Zhirkov and concentrate on the Russian market and homegrown talents. As things stand this is proving to be a somewhat unwise decision, neither for the present, nor for the future of the club as nothing seems to be going right, and a positive outlook for the coming years is hard to find.
Dinamo have won only once since November and have now lost three in a row, conceding 9 goals. They’ve got all sorts of problems on the pitch and it’s hard to see how they can progress with one of the owners not willing to sack the head coach Andrei Kobelev.
As for CSKA, they should have won against Lokomotiv last week, but a total lack of luck and really poor (or you might say biased) refereeing resulted in just a draw. The response in midweek was good though, as they rallied to comfortably beat Krasnodar in the cup semifinal (3-1). They did have some issues in defense, but in attack they were lethal. Starting with their 19-year-old wonder-kid Aleksandr Golovin who netted a first half brace, and ending with their new Nigerian striker Aaron Olanare who worked tirelessly for 90 minutes.
The fans of both teams might be friendly to each other, but I doubt proceedings on the pitch will be too friendly. The hosts really ought to win here and win comfortably. After all, the league is still CSKA’s top priority as both the title and even a place in the Champions League coming into question in recent weeks.
CSKA -1 handicap @ 2.15
Rostov – Zenit
Zenit lost their main creative force in Danny for the season last week and his absence was certainly felt in their Cup semi-final on Wednesday. They were clearly superior to Amkar, but without their chief lock picker they lacked that one brilliant touch or final pass. Despite this lack of creativity, the team from St. Petersburg did go through on penalties, but scored only once in 120 minutes.
They might have to deal with the same problem when travelling to face Rostov, a team who’ve have kept clean sheets in each of their last 7 league matches. Rostov, who are still top of the league, have, without any question, the best defense in Russia and you can expect an even more cautious approach to this game. I think they’ll be happy with a draw here, and they’ve got a very good chance of getting it.
Draw @ 3.10
Here’s the acca:
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