Season Review: Assessing the Russian Premier League before long winter break

Winter, in Russia, generally means cold. The temperatures vary, from above zero in the areas around Krasnodar to around minus forty in Yakutsk, but, either way, the conditions are not conducive to professional football. So, each winter, a familiar debate appears in Russia around the scheduling of the football season. Should they, as in the past, set the football calendar from March to November, leaving the winter as pre-season? Should they, as is the case now, begin the season in the summer and finish as the next summer approaches, with a huge winter break from December to March? There’s no easy option.

The current system requires a sort of pre-season within the season, meaning that there can often be huge discrepancies between the earlier portion of the season and the later portion. Squads can be re-shaped, managers can come and go and title hopefuls can wither away, often all at once.

As the winter break descended upon the Russian Premier League, the main story was the departure of Leonid Slutskiy from CSKA Moscow. Third in the league, eight points off leaders Spartak Moscow, Slutskiy departs with his side struggling for form. Yet he also departs as the club’s longest serving manager, and one of their most important.

Slutskiy was in charge for seven years, from 2009-2016, winning 167 out of his 301 matches, along with three league titles, two Russian Cups and two Super Cups. There is no Russian manager of this current generation that can match his achievements. But, by the end, there was a feeling of tiredness, that everyone needed a change, something fresh. He is replaced by former assistant and former BATE Borisov head coach Viktor Goncharenko, who has a tough job in restructuring an ageing squad despite the financial austerity now imposed by the club hierarchy.

Goncharenko’s immediate task will be to find some way to gain ground on Spartak, though he will face difficulties. The league leaders, so far, appear to have all the requisite qualities.

In Quincy Promes, they have the best player in the league, with a WhoScored rating of 7.6 for the season, the highest in Russia. They also have a talented manager in Massimo Carrera, who spent years working with Antonio Conte at Juventus and Italy. Carrera, who arrived at Spartak as Dmitry Alenichev’s assistant, took over in turbulent circumstances, with his former boss sacked after AEK Larnaca knocked Spartak out of the Europa League. Caretaker, at first, Carrera was given the permanent job after convincing the board of his quality. There is little to suggest that Spartak made the wrong decision.

Yet Spartak will face tough competition, if not from CSKA, definitely from Zenit. Mircea Lucescu is used to winning titles, he knows how it is done, and the five-point gap between Zenit and Spartak is not unassailable. Leading the league’s possession charts, with an average of 57.4%, and the pass completion rankings, with 82.4%, Zenit are a team used to dominating their opponents. They are, on their day, the most accomplished team in the league but they have developed a worrying habit for dramatic defeats. In the last five games, both Terek Grozny and Krasnodar have come away from matches against Zenit with all three points. The signing of Hernani, a 22-year-old centre-back from Atletico Paranaense, is supposed to go some way to ensuring that such slips become less frequent. To catch Spartak, they will need to be.

Developments at the top always garner more attention, due to the huge gap in quality, but the Russian relegation battle is equally tumultuous. Russia’s greatest yo-yo side Tom Tomsk, bottom of the league and six points off absolute safety, look perilously close to admitting defeat. Then, the one remaining relegation spot and the two relegation play-off spots will largely be fought between Arsenal Tula, FC Orenbrug, Ural, and Krylya Sovetov. Anzhi, 6 points ahead of the relegation play-off places, could also be dragged into the fray, as is the nature of having six teams competing to avoid the drop. One win over a rival can change the complexion of things. Combined with a result against a team higher up the league, shoots of recovery start to make themselves apparent.

At top and bottom, then, the onset of the winter break provides few answers but many interesting questions. The huge gap, December to March, will provide tests that are not evident in other leagues across Europe. Momentum can be stretched over a two or three week winter break but over three months things become more difficult. The first round of fixtures after the break, headed by CSKA v Zenit, are as much an unknown as the opening day of the season. By May, the league could look quite different.