CSKA approached the confrontation with Lokomotiv with serious personnel problems, since the participation of a whole group of leading players in the game was questionable: Willian Rocha, Sasha Zdelar, Jorge Carrascal and others. As a result, of all the injured, only the Brazilian returned to the base. At least, Vladimir Fedotov got the opportunity to form an experienced trio in the center of defense and was deprived of the need in the derby to throw the young Mikhail Ryadno into battle again. In turn, the Serb was included in the application, but remained on the bench. Thus, the composition of the army team has not changed much compared to the meeting of the previous round with Akhmat.
But Mikhail Galaktionov managed to surprise his colleague a lot. He lifted Nair Tiknizyan, who has gained tremendous momentum and has already scored four goals in the RPL and the Cup of the country this season, into the offensive line, and released Mario Mitai to the left edge of the defense. On the right, Sergey Pinyaev played in front, and Maxim Glushenkov, who successfully came on as a substitute in Voronezh and gave two assists, played in the "ten" position.
However, it quickly became clear that the coach had outwitted himself. Although the beginning is completely left to the guests. It seemed that they were about to open an account. The Army Men, on the contrary, fought back with great difficulty and almost did not cross the middle of the field, relying only on Igor Akinfeev's signature takeaways in the direction of Anton Zabolotny.
Tiknizyan regularly received passes from the left and created difficulties for Kirill Nababkin, who often took care of him in his position. It is not surprising that it was from this zone that the first moment came. After a swift play of a set piece in the center, Glushenkov met the ball and made an excellent pass to the far corner of the goalkeeper's box. If Artem Dzyuba had been there, the ball would probably have been in the goal, but Ivan Kuzmichev did not hit the target from a lethal position. Soon, the striker himself showed a striking inaccuracy. Akinfeev deflected Glushenkov's insidious free-kick in front of him, but his opponent missed the target.
The Red-Blues gradually came to their senses and began to look for gaps in the opponent's formations. The most important of them was found just on the left flank, where Tiknizyan did not have time to help Mitai. The hosts took advantage of this and carried out some good attacks. But Pinyaev on the right was absolutely invisible. Having lost the opportunity to move to the center on the left and interact with Dzyuba there, Sergei was lost.
Questions arose again about the problematic defense of the railwaymen, which allowed CSKA to score twice in three minutes out of the blue. At first, Ilya Samoshnikov did not have time for Chalov, who burst into the penalty area, and knocked him down, although Artyom Karpukas flew to help in the tackle. The referee immediately pointed to the "point", and the striker converted the fourth penalty in the last two RPL matches and took the lead in the scorer race.
The red-greens did not have time to play the ball from the center, as they missed again. It all started with another cool throw from Akinfeev and the fight won by Zabolotny. Then the ball was picked up by Mukhin and timely found Chalov in front. Yegor Pogostnov played one-on-one with Fedor, but he allowed the opponent to make a gorgeous heel pass to Milan Gajic, who burst into the penalty area with the second pace. The Serb, on the other hand, could not miss. At the same time, the same Tiknizyan did not run after him. The only fly in the ointment for Fedotov's team was the injury of Baktiyor Zainutdinov, who had to be replaced by Ryadno shortly before the break.
It seemed that Galaktionov in the locker room would try to correct his own mistakes and make castling, but this did not happen. Lokomotiv continued to control the ball without much progress. Like Pinyaev, Dzyuba dissolved, who almost did not receive a pass. The team was noticeably lacking the last pass.
In turn, CSKA defended compactly, leaving no free zones and depriving the opponent of his main trump cards - speed and space. And at the first opportunity, the hosts organized dangerous counterattacks. The problems of the guests in defense have not gone away. With diagonal transfers from flank to flank, the defense of the red-greens collapsed like a house of cards. Perhaps the worst was Mitai. In the episode with the third goal, he allowed Gajić to overtake himself. Then the Albanian seemed to have time to make a selection near the front, but carried the ball through the center directly to Mukhin. Maxim, on the other hand, beautifully spun the ball into the far corner and upset the former team.
Only after that, the headquarters of the railway workers made five substitutions in three minutes. In particular, the flanks of the attack were completely refreshed. There was also a joker - Wilson Isidore. And Anton Miranchuk appeared in the center, and it instantly bore fruit. He gave an aggravating pass to the fresh Dmitry Rybchinsky, who only at the last moment knocked the ball out from under his feet for a corner. And the corner ended with a long-awaited goal. No one prevented the tall Pogostnov from closing his partner's feed from a couple of meters, and Chalov, who was trying to take the ball off the line, involuntarily tucked it into the net.
But the intrigue was almost immediately killed by another failure of the guests' defense. Row, taking advantage of Chalov's discount, made a timely throw into the penalty area, and the short Mukhin, who ran in from the depths, jumped over Mitai and accurately struck with his head. Thus, the midfielder, who is not famous for his high performance, scored his debut double in his career in a match with his former team.
After that, the meeting could be ended, since the railroad workers finally gave up and did not try to go forward. Rather, CSKA could bring the matter to an even greater defeat. For example, Lantratov with great difficulty parried an unpleasant shot by Yaroslav Arbuzov from outside the penalty area.