Kuban Krasnodar – Dinamo Moscow – Thomas Giles prediction

From being the team with seemingly no chance of staying up given their on and off-field troubles this season, Kuban Krasnodar fans can now dream of survival. They picked up an excellent 1-0 win against Lokomotiv Moscow last time out with the much derided Roman Pavyluchenko scoring against his former club with a penalty.

Dinamo Moscow on the other hand are in real danger of being relegated from any Soviet or Russian top flight for the first time in their history. They are only one point outside of the relegation spots but still find themselves in the relegation play-off places. The club recently sacked their manager and replaced him with their youth coach, perhaps this was due to the amount of young players in the Dinamo’s first team. However, it backfired and they went down 3-1 to title-chasers Rostov in their last match.

I would back Krasnodar here, they will have real confidence after defeating high-flying Lokomotiv whilst Dinamo are on a very slippery slope with no win since the middle of March.