Zenit’s victory
Zenit’s victory
Rostov has a record season for itself in terms of points scored after 22 rounds. Thanks to this, Valery Karpin’s team could climb to the second place in the RPL, losing 9 points to the leader Zenit. The Yellow-Blues started the spring part of the championship with a 1:3 defeat against Lokomotiv, but in the next 4 matches they managed to rebuild themselves, scoring 10 points out of 12 possible.
In the last round, Rostov once again showed its character and rebounded from 0:2 with Orenburg (2:2), scoring the decisive goal in the 89th minute. Osipenko behaved like a hero who scored his fourth goal in the last 6 matches.
On average, a club creates 1.48 xg per game, with 1.36 xg allowed.
Zenit is confidently leading the table with 8 rounds before the end of the Premier League, and the main intrigue for them is the size of the loss to second place at the end of the season. Now it’s 9 points, but of course it will increase after this game.
In terms of the expected number of goals scored (xg = 2.1) and goals conceded (xga = 0.58), Blue-White-Blue lead by a large margin. In the autumn part of the championship, the team of Sergei Semak in 5 matches won 4, with one loss to CSKA (0:1).
I think this meeting will be without surprises. The favorite will increase its advantage over competitors.