Can CSKA overcome nine-point gap to retain their RPL crown?

Bottom of their Champions League group and nine points off the top of the Russian Premier League, this season is developing into a catastrophe for CSKA Moscow. Leonid Slutskiy’s side were crowned league champions just months ago but the situation, both on and off the pitch, is rapidly deteriorating. 2016-17 is quickly becoming an annus horribilis. 

Winning the league last season, rather than acting as another sign of the club’s dominant position, is now being conceived of as the last hurrah of an ageing, worsening and stripped-down squad. Sergei Ignashevich and Vasili Berezutskiy, the centre-back pairing that have been at the heart of CSKA’s success over the last 10 years, are now 37 and 34. respectively, and it shows. To compound the issue, the back-up centre-back, instead of being a young, speedy player being edged towards first-team football, is Vasili’s twin, Alexei Berezutskiy, also 34.  

The pair may be able to eke out another couple of years, and have been among CSKA’s better performers this season with WhoScored ratings of 7.09 and 7.08, but that is beside the point. The club have, as yet, made no solid attempts to look at long-term replacements. Ivan Novoseltsev was available this summer, after impressing for Rostov last season, but the club failed to bring him in, instead allowing the defender to sit on Zenit’s bench. Things appear to be set to get worse, rather than better, as President Yevgeny Giner has suggested that the club should look to reduce their spending. Investment is needed, but it is not forthcoming.

The problems associated with an ageing defence are growing worse but the real crisis of quality remains with the forward line. Here, investment is most needed, yet the club have failed to attract any players that can improve the squad. The departure of Ahmed Musa was, perhaps, unstoppable but there has been little attempt to replace him. CSKA signed Lacina Traore in the summer, a striker of a radically different sort to Musa and, crucially, of a lower quality. Indeed, Vladimir Ponomarev, a member of CSKA sides of the 1960s, has described Traore as “simply useless”, suggesting that the striker is “no Vagner Love or Seydou Doumbia”.  

At least this season, the assessment appears accurate. Traore only has three league goals yielding a WhoScored rating of just 6.40, while CSKA do not have a player in the top 10 of the league’s goalscorers. Traore’s main back up, Carlos Strandberg, is promising but is not yet ready for regular first-team football and Roman Eremenko, who joins Traore on three goals, is now out of the picture.  

Eremenko’s case has added to the general sense of malaise at the club. The problems on the pitch can be equated to a lack of investment and a dearth in quality, but Eremenko has presented an unsolvable problem. The attacking midfielder, probably CSKA’s best player, has now been banned from all football-related activities for two years after testing positive for cocaine. It is unclear whether Eremenko will appeal the ban, or at least the length of it, but it appears that his time at CSKA is over. He is unlikely to play for the club again. 

A ban for Eremenko has made added to the problems of an ageing defence and a malfunctioning strike-force, but Slutskiy is also facing problems with the fans. A few weeks ago, a portion of the CSKA support unveiled banners deriding the head coach. One of the banners, ostensibly referring to a cautious style of play, read “enough cowardice, it’s time to play” but more serious undertones may explain the timing of the fans’ actions. Ahead of the banners making their presence felt, Slutksiy appeared on a video advertisement for a Jewish cultural centre. The banner may not have been overtly anti-Semitic in nature but many have drawn a link between the timing of the banner and the timing of Slutskiy’s appearance on the advertisement.  

Between a declining squad, a lack of investment, Eremenko’s two-year ban and the disgruntlement with Slutskiy, CSKA are hurtling towards crisis. Slutskiy is likely to be afforded the time to make some additions in the winter transfer window but, if Champions League qualification evades CSKA, the head coach could find himself pushed out of the club. It would be a disastrous end to a largely successful spell, leaving the most prominent Russian head coach of his generation out of a job.