Spartak M – Rostov

In Moscow, the rivals will trade goals.

Spartak Moscow started the season as the second favourite to win the title. After winning the recent Russian Cup, bookmakers believed in the ability of the 'red-and-whites' to contend for the top spot in the Premier League. Moreover, on the way to the trophy the people's team knocked out two main rivals on the national stage: Zenit and Krasnodar. True, it was in penalty shootouts, but the result doesn't change. The other thing is that Juan Carrasco's side in the opening rounds of the season showed some lack of readiness to deliver consistently high results. Three wins in the first official matches of the football year for the red-and-whites were followed by a home defeat to Krasnodar. Later, the victory over the arch-enemy Zenit turned into two slips in the championship in a row: a home draw with Orenburg and a defeat in the derby against Dynamo. The latter happened last Sunday and was extremely bitter for Spartak fans. The red-and-whites fought back in the second half after Konstantin Tyukavin's sending off, but could not derive any benefit from it. Undoubtedly, such a result was influenced by the absence of Spartak's midfield leaders Ruslan Litvinov and Ezequiel Barco, who did not take the field against Dynamo and will not play against Rostov. The focus on giving match practice to young Spartak players evokes sympathy for Carrasco, but so far rarely yields the results demanded by the red-and-whites' current ambitions here and now. Rostov, one of the mid-table teams in Russian football, deserves attention perhaps more than anyone else. The southerners are not in the best financial period, but manage to replenish their squad with fairly high-quality players. Rostov's squad was strengthened without much expense by Igor Nogueira, Yaroslav Mikhailov, Maxim Mukhin and Daniil Khlyusevich; Ola Kunle Olusegun joined from Krasnodar for a modest half a million euros. Only one match of the season out of ten for Rostov has been a flop; in the others, Jonathan Alba's side looked decent. Including the 0-1 defeat in Krasnodar, where they managed to play essentially on equal terms with the Russian vice-champion. The visitors will put up resistance to the capital team and exchange goals with it.