Last weekend Zenit Saint Petersburg’s season of fluctuating fortunes and Jekyll-and-Hyde performances imploded as a disappointing 1-1 draw against Lokomotiv Moscow extinguished any faint hopes of winning the Russian league or securing a Champions League spot.
“It’s been a strange old season,” Nicolas Lombaerts tells The Set Pieces. That is an understatement, with Zenit now set to enter a transitional phase as coach André Villas-Boas departs. At the time of his appointment, the Portuguese had envisioned building a dynasty at Zenit, becoming a successor to Peter the Great, the city’s founder. But at best his tenure is largely viewed with apathy – he has been neither a success nor a failure.
Last season Zenit won the domestic title, but it has been a different picture this campaign. An irascible Villas-Boas has repeatedly lambasted the introduction of the 6+5 rule by the Russian Football Union and, apart from Hulk’s much-improved performances, his team have regressed. In the Champions League Zenit suffered a surprise second-round elimination at the hands of Benfica. In short, Villas-Boas has struggled to build on the work of his predecessor Luciano Spalletti.
“We made too many mistakes against small teams,” Axel Witsel tells The Set Pieces. “At home Zenit lost a lot of points in a stupid manner in November and December. That period made the difference, the roots of losing the title lie there.”
“They [the smaller opposition] were playing with ten men behind the ball, they played on the counter attack and we conceded a lot of goals that way,” adds Lombaerts. “It was hard for us to find a proper solution to score more goals. Zenit has the best squad, but that didn’t help us against Mordovia and Amkar [Perm] at home.”
“In the Champions League we played well,” says Witsel. “But, yes, after the Benfica elimination, everyone was really upset because we could have won and progressed.”
