Football Season Guide

Dynamo Moscow had a pretty frustrating season last year in which they showed glimpses of real potential at times but were far too inconsistent and unable to keep the pace at the top end of the standings, falling short of the standard they set in the prevous year. Marcel Licka was sacked with still a few games to go and now the club is heading on a new direction with the signing of Valery Karpin, who was managing the national team until the summer and has previously broadly overachieved with a Rostov side that was one of the more attacking and enterprising ones in the league. Karpin is a known quantity at this level and he will ensure that a certain level of performance is maintained by what is still one of the stronger squads in the division. The new signings so fer have been just two but they are both established players who are likely to be among the best in the squad right away - Maksim Osipenko, joking form Karpin's former side, and also reliable goalie-getter Ivan Sergeev, who revived his career at Krylya last season after two years on the Zenit bench. He will get a lot more minutes at Dynamo now and is expected to bring the goals and overall acumen that was lacking in the final third last year - even before Konstanitn Tyukavin got injured in early March. The main question mark regarding Dynamo before the start of the season is whether they can find the right balancem, especially in defence, as they far too vulnerable there last season, and also whether they can find enough production from the wide players - who were just not too good enough last year. On paper, Dynamo's squad looks quite well-balanced, even if they lose a huge player in Jorge Carrascal amidst interest from Flamengo, and Karpin has the chance to make then a genuine contender if they get off to a good start, and players like Daniil Fomin, Denis Makarov and Diego Laxalt rediscover their best form.