Lokomotiv Moscow- Amkar Perm
Football: Russian Premier League 2009/2010
Sunday, 8th November 2009. Kickoff 17:00

---

Lokomotiv Moscow (6th) HOME 9-5-0 25:10

Lokomotiv earned vital 3 points in Siberia, where they successfully beat Tom 1-3. Dmitry Sychev continued his sublime form by netting 2 goals for the visitors. 26 year old striker has been rewarded with a call to the National team by Guus Hiddink. Malhas Asatiani comes back to reinforce the back line. Tomislav Duimovic and Ruslan Kambolov are both suspended.

Yury Semin was short of both of his center backs in the previous match, so he would be relieved to see Malhaz Asatiani be available again after the suspension. This means that either Sennikov or Basa gets dropped to the bench. Tomislav Duimovic should be covered by Denis Glushakov in the defensive midfielder role. The position is well-known to the Russian all-around player. Anticipated return of Brazilian Wagner could finally happen.

Tactic/Mood/Confidence

Lokomotiv is one of the fastest teams around and they have recovered the ability to really hurt the opposition on the counter play. Yury Semin will ask his men to keep the ball on the ground as the aerial battle would level hosts’ chances of prevailing in the match.

The win in Tom’ was absolutely critical for Loko’s self confidence. They now firmly have their eyes set on the European cup zone, and maybe, even a 3rd place finish.

Last match analysis Tom - Lokomotiv 1-3

Freezing conditions forced the players to fly around the pitch. Lokomotiv were awarded a very controversial penalty on the 10th minute of the game and Dmitry Sychev made no mistake from eleven meters. Tom’ temporarily dazed off after the goal and just watched visitors continue running at them. Goran Maznov brought the team mates back into the clash as he tapped in a rebound shot from inside the penalty area. Another fast break found Dmitry Sychev unmarked and Russian striker unleashed a blistering shot in the far corner of Pareiko’s goal. On the second minute of the second half the game was finished as a fortunate ricochet placed the ball in Odemvingie’s feet and the striker made no mistake from close range.

Lokomotiv simply outran Tom’ as the attacking was always one step ahead of the Siberians defense. Despite missing 2 crucial center backs visitors managed to escape serious problems, although at times hosts did put them to a serious test. Once again Loko was favored by the match officials, a tendency which simply can’t be ignored or unnoticed.

Amkar Perm (13th) AWAY 3-3-7 10:20

Amkar should be thankful to have such mediocre teams like Khimki and Kuban’ in the Premier League, otherwise they would be in serious trouble by now. 2 central defenders Cherenchikov and Kalashnikov are out, which adds more woes to Rashid Rahimov. Predrag Sikimic and Miklos Gaal stayed in Perm’ as they are suffering from the flu virus.

Rashid Rahimov transformed the formation to the 4-5-1 variant in the previous league game against Dynamo in Moscow. Taking into consideration a relatively positive result (0-0) it would be logical to expect Amkar start with the same outlay. Especially against Lokomotiv, whose midfield line is one of the strongest in the league. Rahimov has no choice but to probably give Epifanov his debut start as both Kalashnikov and Cherenchikov are unavailable.

Tactic/Mood/Confidence

Rashid Rahimov knows Lokomotiv weaknesses perfectly and will try to exploit them. Probably one of the ideas for the match would be to play man-marking defense against crucial players like Sychev and Odemvingie. It would obviously be a tough task though.

This is a highly principal fixture for Amkar’s head coach Rashid Rahimov. Young specialist started this season as the manager of Lokomotiv and was later sacked due to unsatisfactory results. Would not be a surprise to see Amkar players more fired up than ever.

Last match analysis Dynamo - Amkar 0-0

Rashid Rahimov dropped Predrag Sikimic to the bench and returned Jean Carlos to partner Kushev in attack. Brazilian technician was arguably the most active figure on the pitch, so the rotation experiment obviously left an impact on his personal motivation. Another notable moment was the appearance of Sergey Volkov who celebrated a return from injury, which kept him out for almost 6 months.

Betting advice

The home win doesn’t seem as an obvious bet of you take a look at the H2H stats. For 3 years in a row Lokomotiv has constantly been losing at home to Amkar with the same 0-1 score. Possibly they are simply a bogey opponent for Railway boys. However I don’t think Yury Semin will be feeling too superstitious on Sunday evening.

HANDICAP BETTING :

Take Lokomotiv (-1) @ 1.67 with Bet365