Krasnodar – Akron

In Krasnodar, the hosts will confidently beat the Premier League outsiders.

Before the start of the season, bookmakers did not forecast Krasnodar a serious challenge for the championship title. In the off-season, Eduard Spertsyan and Viktor Sa left the team, and John Córdoba returned from the World Cup injured. The Bulls also added a large number of players to the squad who seemed not ready for first-team football. This concerns Daniil Utkin, who has wandered through several clubs in recent years, Magomed Ozdoev, who is already quite advanced in age, and several other players. For big money, Sergey Galitsky bought the Brazilian Cristian and brought back to the club his pupil Dmitry Vorobyov. As a result, aside from Cristian, none of the others from the mentioned group has yet proven himself. That said, Krasnodar had enough internal resources to start the new Russian Premier League season better than anyone. Against the backdrop of instability among the main rivals Spartak and Zenit, the Bulls produced a run of six consecutive wins and only stumbled in a match a week ago in Samara. In the meeting with Krylya Sovetov, Krasnodar delivered one of the best halves of the current season, beating Samara in the first half 2-0, but then produced the absolute worst. Conceding two goals to Ivan Oleynikov and his teammates, Murad Musaev's side for the first time this season dropped points (2-2) and underscored one of their weakest traits: concentration. It was precisely these concentration issues that almost allowed the modest Fakel to overturn a three-goal deficit against the Bulls in Krasnodar; this factor proved decisive in Samara. The upcoming home match for the Bulls, concentration-wise, should be a model. There is no doubt about the full superiority of the Russian runners-up over the penultimate team in the standings. Meanwhile, to avoid losing confidence ahead of the national team break, Krasnodar should win by 2-3 goals. Indeed, Akron has not yet won a single game this season in the Premier League, with three losses and four draws. Undoubtedly, the visitors will not be able to claim their first victory in Krasnodar, as neither class nor maximum commitment will help them. Let's bet on a confident home win.