Football Season Guide

Nizhny Novgorod needed to go to the play-offs to eventually scrape to safety but they got the better of Rodina for a 3:2 aggregate win and are preparing for a third straight season among the best in Russia. Sergey Yuran is staying on as a manager despite not really doing too much since taking over in March that can be qualified as impressive or eye-catching. Yet, the hope now is that, with a bit more time on the training pitch in pre-season, will start to move away from the counterattacking and hoping for the best from set-pieces and become more assured and comfortable on the ball. The Sky Blues have been pretty active on the transfer front as Dmitry Tikhyi joins to bolster the defence and reunites with Yuran while a few other former Khimki players linked up with their former manager too. The team strenghened in the wing-back area too as Mateo Stamatov and Dmitriy Zhivoglyadov are quite good additions that should give the team more urgency and quality delivers from wide. In terms of departures, there have been none so far that really hurt the starting 11, barring the return of Nikita Goylo to Zenit, but there are persistent rumours about Timur Suleymanov leaving and that will be quite detrimental in the attacking department. Yet, the squad look quite decent and replete with options, even if they are not spectacular in some areas, and the ingredients are there for Nizhny to have a better season than the last one.