Team Focus: Typically Inconsistent Spartak Struggling at Either End

For the past decade, since their last league victory in 2001, Spartak Moscow are a club who have been bedevilled by inconsistency. The club’s recruitment of players and coaches has been decidedly sketchy since their legendary coach Oleg Romantsev, the man who won 8 league titles while at Spartak, departed in 2003.

The likes of Michael Laudrup, Nevio Scala and Unai Emery have all arrived in the Russian capital amid a significant amount of fanfare and have departed almost as swiftly as they arrived. It’s easy to understand why a degree of scepticism has been created by failures of such high profile foreign coaches. Therefore, when the club decided to turn to Murat Yakin as the man to replace Valery Karpin, who had departed the club a number of months previously, it’s easy to see why there was not universal approval.

Yakin, the former Basel head coach, arrived in Moscow on the back of consecutive domestic league and cup victories in his native Switzerland and there was a hope that this could be the man capable of transforming Spartak into a force to be reckoned with. However, the past couple of months have seen Spartak fall down the table at an alarming rate to the point where a familiar sense of restlessness is beginning to form around the club.

Inconsistency has long been a word closely linked to Spartak Moscow and recent weeks has seen history repeat itself once again. Yakin’s side have gone four league games without a victory, including a demoralising defeat away to Ural, which has seen them sink into mid table territory; alongside city neighbours Lokomotiv.

Over recent seasons, despite their deficiencies under Valery Karpin, you could often assume that Spartak Moscow would be dominant in possession. Last season saw the team end with a league high average possession percentage of 57.4%, ahead of Zenit St Petersburg and eventual champions CSKA Moscow. Under Yakin’s stewardship, such dominance on the ball has dwindled significantly with the team currently averaging a mere 48.9%. This has gone hand in hand with a drop in the team’s pass success percentage, which has fallen to 75.8%. In recent games against Lokomotiv Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg, Spartak have found that they have struggled to impose themselves on the opposition and this is shown by how their opponents managed to manipulate possession of the ball.

It’s also little surprise to see that Spartak’s form has deserted them at a time where Artem Dzyuba has found himself within a goal drought that stretches back to the end of August. The powerful forward began the season in phenomenal form, notching up some six goals in his opening four games, however that now seems an awfully long time ago. Apart from the derby against Torpedo Moscow in September, Dzyuba has not managed to pick up a WhoScored rating of over 6.65, which shows that his lack of goals is severely inhibiting his ability to help the team. Yura Movsisyan’s recent return from injury, which has kept him out for much of the season, is a welcome boost to Spartak, who hope that his arrival in the squad will aid their attacking threat.

Spartak presently have the second worst defensive record in the league’s top ten. The team have conceded 14 goals in their opening 11 matches and have only managed to keep three clean sheets – ironically two of those clean sheets came against Zenit St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow, two of the league’s strongest sides. An average of 13.8 attempts are made on Spartak’s goal in each game this season, which is behind only the likes of Arsenal Tula and Rostov, teams battling for their lives at the bottom of the table. For a side with aspirations of European football this is simply not good enough – with Zenit St Petersburg limiting sides to an average of 9.3 shots on their goal per game, it’s clear where the issues lie for Spartak. There isn’t a single defender who has managed to achieve a WhoScored average of over 7.0, which goes to show that there’s been a lack of commanding performances from Spartak’s defenders so far this season.

The turbulence of Spartak’s season has not been aided by the fact that a number of players have faced lengthy injury lay-offs. The likes of Movsisyan, Roman Shirokov and Aras Ozbiliz have all been long term absentees and you could argue that all three would be first team regulars. Ozbiliz faces another few months on the sidelines after suffering from cruciate ligament damage, however both Movsisyan and Shirokov are gradually feeling their way back into the first team squad. There has been a steady stream of injury concerns to a number of influential players so far this season and Yakin will no doubt be hoping that the worst of such a situation is behind him.

For Spartak to overcome the issues they have faced, and to ensure that Murat Yakin is not simply another expensive foreign coach left by the wayside, then the team must begin to string a run of victories together. Artem Dzyuba’s form has been a major concern, meaning that Yura Movsisyan’s return to action could be a timely blessing in Spartak’s increasingly desperate pursuit of goals. The disjointed performances this season have been a major concern and change must come quickly if Spartak are to have a push toward the European places.

Will Murat Yakin turn things around and save his job at Spartak? Let us know in the comments below