Orenburg play like most Russian teams at the bottom of the table. They really try to play football and not “hit-and-run.” They have a good team, but today they were particularly difficult due to the fact that we played away in the Europa League. We did not have much time to recover and you saw at the end of the second half, we weren’t very fresh, which showed when we needed to make the last pass. We could and should have scored on the counterattack, but every time we did not have the last pass in us for the second goal.
It looked like Zenit played three central defenders in the second-half. Is it true that Javi Garcia played that far back?
No, sometimes the coach asks one of the midfielders to fall in the area between the central defenders and midfield and Javi did just that to disperse the attack from deep. This is our game, we’re not just doing long balls to Dzyuba.
Today Zenit had a completely new back four combination. Was difficult to play with the new defence?
When you have almost completely changed the back four, it is always more difficult to play. We are more used to playing with Neto and Criscito, but although this was unusual today, for a first time it wasn’t bad. Of course, it can always get better, but we had to adapt to this combination during the course of the game.
Next week Spartak play CSKA. What’s the better outcome for Zenit?
To be honest, I don’t know. If CSKA win and we beat Tom, we will stay ahead of the army men by four points and three ahead of Spartak. If Spartak win, CSKA will be far behind the leaders. I don’t know what would be better for Zenit. In any case, we have to play against both Spartak and CSKA later
