Football Season Guide

Krylya Sovetov were one of the biggest disappointments as they were consistently in and around the bottom four places and nowhere near the top six, where a team of their resources, fanbases and potential should be. Magomed Adiev was extremely negative and risk-averse ism setting up the team and that greatly limited the team's attacking potential and creativity. They were seldom exciting or able to get goals from open play and seemed to be heading for relegation until the April sacking of the coach and bringing in Roman Bulatov as a caretaker. He got big wins over Lokomotiv and Spartak Moscow in quick succession and then a last-day hammering of local rivals Akron spared them a relegation play-off. It was not a season to look back fondly and now the aim is to be much more convincing and avoid any of the drama of last season. Bulatov has been kept on a permanent basis after the good work done in the spring but he knows that he should be on alert and a poor start of the campaign may doom him quite quickly. Krylya have added to their attacking midfield options with the signing of two quality and versatile players in Denis Makarov, formerly of Dynamo Moscow, and of Slovenian midfielder Martin Kramaric, who has shown glimpses of quality at Sochi but has generally been far too insistent. None of the key players from last season have left so far, apart from Ilzat Akhmetiv, whose loan ended, and as a whole the starting 11 looks quite good in terms of individuals, and it will be all about finding a system that gets the best of the available talent. Bulatov seems to be preferring a compact 4-2-3-1 where the wingers could be more central but will need a centre-forward who can play with his back to goal. Chinnedu Geoffrey seemed to be the man to do that last year but got injured soon after the change of coach and has not played much as a whole. This is one area some reinforcements could be needed before the end of the window but for now the team looks just about decent enough on the face of it to secure a place in mid-table and not worry about relegation based on how Bulatov approached the challenges at the tail end of last season.