Two victories in a row, unprecedented for the Grozny team in the current championship, finally allowed them to jump out of the zone of not only relegation, but even transitional matches. However, it is already clear that Akhmat faces a difficult battle for survival.
Despite the points acquisitions, it is still difficult to say whether the hosts have really improved lately, since under their new coach Magomed Adiev, all three games turned out to be quite unique. In the home game with Lokomotiv (0:2) they spent most of the time in the minority, in the away game with CSKA (2:1), on the contrary, they were in the majority, and on Thursday Akhmat with great difficulty defeated Sochi in a scandalous confrontation. , many of whose players were poisoned before this meeting.
However, their opponent is going through perhaps even more exciting times. Sergei Yuran’s team lost five consecutive matches in the RPL and unexpectedly found itself among those clubs that may even lose their place in the elite domestic division altogether.
Overall, the importance of this game for both opponents cannot be understated.
This may well explain the very cautious start to the match: the opponents tried, first of all, to avoid mistakes in passes and eliminate any risk in their own half. In addition, the hot Grozny weather clearly prevented the players from turning on high speeds.
In this situation, standards often come to the rescue. And one of them almost became effective when, in the 15th minute, the hosts’ defender Darko Todorovic hit the crossbar with a free kick almost from the left corner.
Soon, it was from this flank that Akhmat’s effective attack followed. Bernard Berisha broke through to the corner of the goalkeeper’s area, his cross was interrupted by a defender, but the Albanian forward was the first to reach the ball and shoot. Visiting goalkeeper Artur Nigmatullin parried the shot, and Mohamed Konate did not miss when finishing from three meters – 1:0, 25th minute.
But the Nizhny Novgorod team, apart from Nikolai Kalinsky’s shot from 23 meters (Georgy Shelia easily fixed the ball), for a long time failed to create anything at the opponent’s goal. So far, when Kalinsky served a corner from the left flank, the host players allowed Nikoloz Kutateladze to calmly head the ball into the net from seven meters away – 1:1, 42nd minute.
However, Akhmat, which immediately became more active, managed to take the lead. Lukas Lova crossed from the free kick (and again from the left), Vladislav Kamilov headed it from the center of the penalty area, and the central defender and captain of the Nizhny Novgorod team Kirill Gotsyuk not only failed to intercept, but he also interfered with the goalkeeper, from whom the ball dropped into the goal – 2 :1, 45+4th minute.
Sergei Yuran, who lost Dmitry Zhivoglyadov in the first half due to an injury, during the break, wanting to change the situation, made two more changes, bringing Juan Boseli and Mateo Stamatov onto the field. True, immediately due to damage the hosts have to change their important central defender Nader Gundry, by the way, a participant in the last world championship as part of its main sensation – the Moroccan national team.
While the changes were taking place, the visiting defense made another mistake, allowing Konata to push Gotsyuk away from the ball, enter the penalty area from the left and shoot past Nigmatullin – 3:1, 53rd minute. This is the eighth goal of the Burkina Faso forward in the championship.
Paris NN’s troubles did not end there: Kirill Bozhenov kicked into the hosts’ player, having received a second mustard plaster from chief referee Vladislav Bezborod, he went to the locker room.
The obviously upset guests here allowed the Grozny team to bring the score to a devastating one: Milos Shatara finished off the ball from close range after saving the goalkeeper, whom the defenders again did not help – 4:1, 65th minute.
And at the end of the meeting, Hamid Agalarov, who appeared in the Grozny team, as in his best times, constantly created chances at the visitors’ goal and could generally make the score for the guests completely indecent. However, Nigmatullin continued to fight his opponent almost alone. But Lechi Sadulayev still hit the goalkeeper from close range – 5:1, 87th minute.
The third consecutive victory in the championship lifted Akhmat immediately to tenth place in the standings (29 points). Paris NN Pique continues – Sergei Yuran’s team lost in the sixth meeting in a row and, with 28 points, dropped to eleventh position. It’s already very close even to the departure zone from the RPL.
