With just over 20 days left for the beginning of the Russian Premier League 2010, all the clubs are weighing the last options available in order to bolster their respective squad. With the European transfer market closed, Russian clubs have the advantage to bring some talent at a relative cheaper price due to a reduction in competition. Apart of troubled Krylya Sovetov Samara, all the other 14 clubs ringed the changes in their squad. Only "other 14 clubs" is due to the fact that FC Moscow will not be taking part in the upcoming season. This all thanks to the cease of funding by their main shareholder MMC Norilsk Nickel. Although I admit that I never was a big fan of them due to the low attendaces they often attracted to the stadium, I can't but feel sorry for their fans, who some of them even went on hunger striker in protest against the decision of their owners. To add insult to injury no body knows where their future lies; the only certainty is that they won't be competing in the upcoming season.
Their place will be taken by Russian Top Division 1995 champions Alania Vladikazkaz, who last season ended in the third place in the Russian First Division. This means that our nemesis Torpedo Moscow won't be competing in the Premier as many have hoped, including me. It's true that we Loko fans don't see an eye with them, but's what better than beating your nemesis on pitch? Right? Anyways Torpedo will stay in the Second Division while Alania will head to the Premier with a squad which until now is that of First Division. Time is ticking and everyone will be wondering if they will be able to build a competive squad. Actually, last week it was reported that Alania approached FC Moscow for the transfer of nine of their players including established players such as Zhevnov, Jakubko, Rebko and Sheshukov. Their only "notable" arrival to date was that Aslan Mashukov from Spartak Nalchik. One positive thing that can be taken from this tragedy is that the low crowds ofhe Eduard Streltsov stadium will be replaced by one of the most dedicated fans in Russia who will undoubtedly crowd their 32,000-capacity Republican Spartak Stadium.
Another team which faced financial problems were Krylya Sovetov Samara. Ironically their sitaution was more precaurious than that of FC Moscow. While FC Moscow have paid all the wages due, Krylya not only didn't found any notable sponsors but haven't paid their player's wages for weeks. To compound their misery their leaders like Jan Koller, Jiri Jarosik, Timofei Kalachev and Vladislav Ignatiev left the club while players who were on loan like Roman Adamov, Stanislav Ivanov and Roman Shishkin followed the others - thus this is case of mass exodus. To compensate for those losses Krylya brought in only Aleksei Kozlov (!) from KaMAZ. Although they have good individuals in their squad such as Budylin, Taranov, Savin and Bober to present a competitive line-up, their substitute bench is worringly thin. Actually this because Krylya will have to rely on unproven youths. A sad story for the only Non-Moscow club who have been in the top flight since its inception and a nightmare for their fans, who are by far one of the best and loyal in the country (their average attendences is one of the highest). Unlike the Citizens and Krylya, the remaining 14 clubs found few difficulties in order to obtain their license for the season. Of the 14, I believe that 6 will be able to challenge for the top positions. Personally the 6 horses are Rubin, Spartak, Zenit, Lokomotiv, CSKA and Dynamo.
I listed also Dynamo because while Lokomotiv and CSKA made the headlines with their respective signings of Aliev and Honda, they by now along with Lokomotiv were the most active in the transfer market. With players like Voronin, Epureanu, Semshov, Cesnauskis, Samedov and the young Kurilov, I believe that Dynamo can even challenge for the top honour in Russia. Although they lost two important players such as Tanasijevic and Kerzhakov, I believe that they made excellent work to replace the departed two. Moreover according to several reports Dynamo are still in the market for a midfielder. After they have made the headlines for the courting of Liverpool ace Benayoun, recent reports have reported that Dynamo have moved their sights onto Romanian intenational midfielder Cristian Tănase who currently wears the red and blue of Steaua.
As aforementioned, CSKA made the headlines with a 9million move of Japanese free-goalscoring midfielder Keisuke Honda. Their squad was also boosted by the arrival of Kirill Nabadkin and Sekou Oliseh from FC Moscow and FC Midtylland respectively. CSKA also managed to sign keeper Sergey Chepchugov from promoted Sibir. This move obviously suggested that CSKA will lose Akinfeev following his heroics in the Champions League in the winter window. However this lucky for them this never occured. CSKA also let Brazilian duo Daniel Carvalho and Vagner Love to leave on loan. Striking trio Ricardo Jesus, Dawid Janczyk and Ouwo Mazzou soon followed. On the other hand their arch-rivals Spartak made only three notable additions to their strong squad. These are Marek Suchy, Nikola Drincic and Ari who joined from Slavia Praha, Amkar Perm and AZ Alkmaar respectively. Spartak also brought early Prudnikov from Sparta Praha while on the other they didn't offered contract to Dedura and Kovalciuc. Zenit hero Boyarintsev swapped the Red-White for the blue of Saturn while Quicny, Rafael Carioca and Malik Fathi were loaned out. Moreover Spartak didn't made Eldar Nizmatudinov's stay permanent.
Moving northwards to Saint Petersburg, to date Zenit had only made two acquisitions being defender Michael Lumb and their fans hero Aleksandr Kerzhakov, who returned to Zenit after 3 years away from St. Petersburg. In addition to those two, Zenit brought also Italian specialist Luciano Spalletti who for sure should be considered something as a coup for them. As expected Zenit were linked with various Italian players such as Rocci and Perotta, to date no Italian swept Italy for the cold Russia. On the hand Zenit let loyal servat Kamil Contofalsky leave while Kim Dong-Jin and as aforementioned Semshov also left the club. Another player who left is Turkish striker Tekke Fatih, who I believe that at Zenit was never given the chance to show his true potential. Tekke Fatih will join Champions Rubin Kazan. He will join along Rubin's two other arrivals Ilie Cebanu and Vitali Kaleshin, who's loan deal was made permanent. Unfortunately Rubin was the Russian club who suffered the heaviest loss, as their wizard Alejandro Dominguez left the Tatarstan capital for the capital of the Valencian Community. Although Tekke can fill his void I don't think so that he is the player of the Argentinian calibre. Moreover Tekke is not a playmaker. Actually recent reports have reported that Rubin are close to sign Bibras Natkho, an Israelit playmaker who plays for Hapoel Tel-Aviv, ironically Rubin's opponents in the Europa League. Recently Rubin were also linked with a possible move of Cetin Servet. Apparently Mr. Kurban is looking to build a Muslim community at Kazan as Natkho is also believed to be a Muslim. Along the Argentine, Stejpan Tomas and Fabio Felicio moved on to Gaziantepspor and Vitoria respectively. Sergey Kozko was released.
With regards to dark-horses, my vote goes to Saturn Moscow Region. Although their squad haven't changed that much from last season as their only signings to date have been Boyarintsev and Kudryashov, I believe that their squad have enough potential to trouble the top six. Moreover Saturn didn't had to deal with players' losses ad they were able to keep practically the whole squad. The same story cannot be said for Chechens Terek Grozny who transfered out practically half the squad. Although I agree with their management's view decision to bring more local talent than foreigners I believe that losing important elements such as Zabavnik, Petre and Pancu could result catastrophic for them. This because these players are international players with huge bags of experience which to day is essential for every club to be successful. Other notable leavers were Valentin Iliev, Fabricio, Ilion Lika, Cleber and Andrei Margaritescu. To compensate, Terek brought in Antonio Ferreira, Dmitri Yatchenko and Shamil Asildarov (all from Spartak Nalchik), Hugo Baez on loan from CSKA Sofia and Brazilian midfielder Mauricio from Fluminense. They also welcomed back Dmitry Smirnov who spent last season on loan at Tom. As the line above suggests, another team which had to deal with some departures were Spartak Nalchik. Actually they had to deal with a lot of departures. Apart of the aforementiond trio, Spartak lost the services of Artem Kontsevoy, Dmitry Khomich (end of loan), Aslan Mashukov, Dejan Radic (to Rostov), David Loria (Irtysh Pavladar [Kazakhstan]) and Oleg Samsonov, Serhiy Plypchuk, Rustem Kalimulin and Ricardo Santos Lago, who all of them were on loan. On the other hand, the arrivals were Gogito Gagua, Stefan Deak, Otto Fredrikson, Aleksandr Shchanitsyn and Nikita Malyarov. Veniamin Mandrykin and Vladimir Dyadyun joined on loan from CSKA and Rubin respectively. Moreover today they signed Roman Kontsedalov from Lokomotiv Moscow. In addition they are expected to sign striker Sylvano Comvalius from my country's club Birkirkara.
The other three clubs who last year were in a struggle against relegation, that is Tom Tomsk, Rostov and Amkar Perm also made some changes. While the middle club were heavily involved in the market and brought in some notable players, Tom made the headlines by signing experienced Korean international defensive midfielder Kim Nam-Il. Obviously he will act as a direct replacement of Aleksandar Radoslavljevic who left for Larissa. Tom also brought Georgi Dzhioyev and yet another Korean Shin Young-Rok from Kuban Krasnodar and Bursaspor respectively. Their other notable departures were keepers Solosin and Gorodov (who last season were on loan at Ural and Chita), and Dmitri Smirnov, Vladimir Dyadyun, Andrei Ivanov and Artem Dzyuba who returned to their respective clubs after their loan period came to an end. Meanwhile Amkar brought in Josip Knezevic, Andrei Topchu and Nikita Burmistrov to make for the lost of Dimitar Telkiskyi, Jean Carlos, Nikola Drincic, Nikolai Zhilyaev, William, Stjepan Babic and Aleksey Yepifanov. Although Knezevic could do well for Amkar's cause, Amkar should better bring in further talent if they don't want to endure a disappointing season.
On the other hand, as aformentioned Rostov had one hack of a busy transfer season. Comparing their arrivals with the departures I believe that Rostov are very stronger than they have been last season and they have all the credentials to be dark horses as Saturn. While it is true that they may feel the loss of the talismanic captain Mikhail Osinov, I believe that the players they brought in can take them up to the next level as some of them are of international material. Timofei Kalachek, Gia Grigalava, Roman Adamov, Anri Khagush, Dejan Radic, Sorin Ghionea, Maksim Kabanov, Andriy Proshyn and Stanislav Ivanov all will be plying their trade at Olimp-2 Vek next season. Meanwhile the list of departures contain the names of Roman Gerus, Maksim Astafjev, Sergey Kuznetsov, Stanislav Khoteyev, Mikhail Rozhkov and Nenad Šljivić along with that of Osinov.
Ultimately, the promoted duo Anzhi Makhackala and Sibir Novosibirsk, as every promoted side with a limited budget tried to lure experience and skill at the best possible dealings. The most active of these two to date were for sure Sibir who signed not less than eleven players. The number of players who left the club was even more staggering as 13 were players who left the Siberian club. These are Nenad Erić, Nikolay Samoilov, Kirill Akilov, Goran Stankovski, the Korean neutralised Denis Laktionov, Semion Semenenko, Kirill Orlov, Sergey Chepchugov, Aleksandr Dovbnya and Sergey Shimulin whose loan deal expired. On the other hand three players who passed last season away from Novosibirsk were also shown the door. Conversly Aleksey Vasiljev, Aleksandr Antipenko, Nikola Valentic, Arūnas Klimavičius, Andrey Kolesnikov, Ivan Nagibin, Aleksey Solosin, Igor Shevchenko, former Rubin and FC Moscow Tomáš Čížek, former Spartak keeper Wojciech Kowalewski and Maxim Astafjev joined Sibir. Interestingly the majority of players came from clubs of the first division or who last year battled relegation in the Premier. As Sibir, Anzhi let a staggering number of player to leave the club. Oleg Malyukov left for Kuban while once prominent Sandro Iashvili returned to his homeland. One capped Alan Kusov was released while Artur Maloyan, Konstantin Sovetkin and Anton Vlasov returned to their respective clubs. Georgian duo Otar Martsaladze and Edik Sadzhaya left for Volga while Shamil Alimagomayev and Daniil Gridnev were both released. Giorgi Navalovski left on loan while former Spartak hot prospect Aleksandr Danishevskiy swapped Makhackala for rich FC Zhemchuzhina-Sochi. With respect to arrivals, Anzhi made their signings gradually. Personally their additions are quite interesting as 5 of the 6 signings are foreign imports. Defenders Mitar Pekovic, Mahir Shukurov and trouble-maker Youssef Rabeh joined from Vojvodina, Inter Baku and Levski Sofia respectively while Todor Timonov and Jan Holenda were brought from CSKA Sofia and Sparta Praha respectively. Their Russian signing was Andrei Streltsov from relegated Khimki.
Personally I believe that we have a very interesting championship on our hands. While I expect the mentioned 6 clubs to challenge for the top honours, I expect Rostov, Saturn and possibly even Terek to trouble the top clubs. On the other side of the table I expect a strong relegation battle as the three promoted clubs could join Spartak Nalchik and Amkar Perm for a season struggle. But anyways nobody knows the future and as past have shown, unpredictability is one of the main elements of the Russian Premier Liga. Let's hope this year doesn't change - mmm, will it be a surprise if Lokomotiv claim the championship? HOPE SO!!! :D
