Spartak Moscow v Rostov
Football: Russian Premier League
Saturday, 30th October 2010. Kickoff 17:30 CET

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Spartak Moscow

Spartak became the first Russian team to defeat Zenit this season. The postponed fixture, which was played this Wednesday in Moscow, finished 1-0 in Red-Whites favor. Karpin has immense problems to deal with before the Saturday match against Rostov.

Regular defenders Suchy and Makeev are suspended; Brazilian striker Ari, right midfielder K. Kombarov and right back Parshivlyuk are injured. Key midfielder Alex is doubtful after missing both of Spartak’s recent fixtures.

Karpin has no other choice but to experiment with the disposition of back four. Nominal left defender Andrey Ivanov has the skills to cover for injured Parshivlyuk on the right. Austrian Martin Stranzl will deputize for suspended Marek Suchy in the center forming a partnership with Nico Pareja.

Finally left winger Dmitry Kombarov will be moved lower into the defensive department. 23 year old has the experience of playing as left wing-back. Miodrag Bojovic was using him in that position at Dynamo.

Central midfielder Ibson looks like the first candidate to be sacrificed to the bench in order to keep the necessary 5 russians/6 internationals proportion. Jano will start as attacking midfielder should Alex be not fit to feature.

Rostov

Rostov is freely giving away points to any side which needs them more than they do. It’s quite a common situation, though, for a team without any tournament motivation.

Upcoming encounter against Spartak does not hold anything positive in store: since 2004 Rostov has always lost to Red-Whites both home and on the road.

Key creative player Alexander Pavlenko is ineligible to take part in the match due to the clause in the load-deal between Rostov and Spartak. Experienced right back Cherkes is available after recovering from a minor injury.

Rostov had suffered some embarrassing defeats over the last years at Luzhniki stadium. 1-5 was the score in 2009 and 0-3 in 2008. The reputation of Spartak's "client" seems to be stuck for eternity with the team now.

Oleh Protasov's men look like a deflated bubble this Autumn. The manager himself has recently expressed an opinion, that the team did not cope psychologically with the leadership status. If to follow this theory Rostov should improve their act now when no one considers a Premier League’s flagman.

In the previous round Krylia Sovetov quite easily took 3 points from Rostov-na-Donu and thus extended Rostov’s winless run to 5 games.
Absence of playmaker Pavlenko will seriously decrease team's offensive potential. Bulgarian Yankov should be the understudy.

Khagush totally screwed up in the previous match against Krylia Sovetov and must be replaced by more reliable Cherkes.

Betting advice

Considering all of Spartak injury woes I think they will have a rather difficult task breaking down Rostov's defense.

Emotionally wise it will be hard to focus following the emotional victory against Zenit. I expect to see a scrappy win by Spartak, so the best option would be to take the under 2.50 goals offer.

HANDICAP BETTING :

Take Under 2.50 goals @ 1.95 with Bet365