Lokomotiv Moscow – Mordovia. Editors’ prediction

We can see an awful season ending for Lokomotiv Moscow: after the winter break they’ve slipped right out of Top-3 and have since lost any chance of playing in Europe next season. Since their last victory on April 24 Cherevchenko’s men have gained only one point in four league games. Two defeats, against rivals Spartak Moscow and Rostov, have closed the door to Europe for Loko. This being said they did showcase some character in their last game against Zenit (1:1), but that draw hasn’t served to improve their league position.

Scoring only two goals in their last four games is the result of Loko being short of quality in attack. The fans of the Railway club are thinking of old times, when they had Roman Pavlyuchenko and Omar Niasse in the two forward positions. At this stage everyone at the club is simply wanting this season to be over and hoping for better next. This being said, against a lowly opponent, they have a chance to send their fans home smiling in the final game of the season.

Mordovia have barely been out of the relegation zone all season. They had a win-less streak of 10 games before, very surprisingly, winning two games on the bounce in May. It was particularly unexpected when Mordovia stole three points vs Rostov (league leaders!) and Kuban. But the Saransk revival was short lived as they went on to lose the next two games – 0:3, 0:3. Their brief resistance seems to be over and this is why we can’t see their situation improving here, even though their is a chance for them to move out of the danger-zone.

Three Lokomotiv Moscow players are almost certain to be called up to the Russian team for Euro 2016 (Guillerme, Tarasov and Samedov) whilst others also have a chance of making it onto the plane to France (Miranchuk for example). This should serve as motivation to put in a performance in the last league game. On this basis, it is expected that Loko have enough quality to get the better of Mordovia here. And they can do so without conceding any goals. The odds, 16/5, on only Lokomotiv to score look particularly appealing, and this is the way to go here.