Football Season Guide

Zenit finished the season as champions after pipping Krasnodar for the top spot with just a game to go, having spent the entire season before that as chasers. Ultimately, it was a case of being the more consistent and experienced side that did what was needed while rarely hitting the maximum of their potential and exciting their fans. They still lost just twice all season, and once since August, while getting points in every game against their fellow rivals at the top. Sergey Semak is well aware of the challenges of trying to replicate the win from last season and is certainly aware of the squad's limitations and the fact that some key performers have reached the end stage with the club and may well leave in the coming weeks and months. The two main additions to the squad have been Kevin Andrade from Baltika, who was one of the best defenders in the league last season. He is expected to take the spot of Nino, who is likely to move back to Brazil in the summer. The other is Brazilian striker Felipe Augusto, arriving for 15m euros from Trabzonspor in a pretty bold move. The Zenit management are making a bet that the striker will fill the role of a full-time number 9 in this team after the disaster that the loan signing of Jhon Duran in February proved. Aleksadnr Sobolev did a decent job as a regular striker last year but he is a rather limited player and in Augusto they get a player who is more mobile, faster and younger by a fair bit. He did not even reached double figures last season though and the move is certainly a risky one. The likes of Wilmar Barrios, Douglas Santos and the aforementioned Nino may well leave before the end of the summer and thus some more new additions are quite likely. As a whole, the Zenit squad is as usual the most talented in the country and the main question regarding them will be whether the coach, who is starting his ninth year at the job will be able to still motivate this squad enough to get consistent results from them in what is again likely to be a battle with Krasnodar for the gold medals.