As pointed out with my weekend winner, Mordovia have come back from the dead and once again proved the bookies wrong with a great win over relegation rivals Kuban Krasnodar. However, they now come up against a Zenit St. Petersburg team fighting for the title.
Mordovia’s main attacking threat Yevgeny Lutsenko scored again in the last fixture and there will be many clubs in the higher echelons of the Russian Premier League perhaps looking to sign him for next season. The team from Saransk’s strength is in offence rather than defence and you can expect them to cause trouble to a Zenit back line which is almost sieve-like at times. The team from St. Petersburg have a worse goals against record than some teams in the bottom half of the table. Furthermore, key defenders Ezequiel Garay (injury) , Domenico Criscito (suspension) and Yury Zhirkov (suspension) will miss the match against Mordovia .
Like Mordovia, Zenit’s strength is attack, as demonstrated by the fact that both Hulk and Artem Dzyuba are amongst the league’s top goalscorers. Andre Villas Boas’s team know they have to win all of their remaining games to have any chance of winning the title so there is plenty of pressure to perform in this game.
In a game which is purely attack versus attack, I would fancy Zenit to come on top but I expect both teams to score.