Moscow “Spartak” this season fails in some matches, but in general leaves a very good impression. The Red-White attack is especially good, which even without Victor Moses creates many dangerous moments. Quincy Promes, the top scorer of the RPL, plays a key role in the team’s attack. But there is another player who has become a truly important figure for Guillermo Abascal.

The new leader of Spartak’s attacks is Alexander Sobolev. Previously, the Russian was more of a rotation player, but now it’s almost impossible to imagine the Red-White squad without a large forward on the tip. Recently, Alexander has added great and developed his own unique style of play.

Abascal discovered the Russian Olivier Giroud.

Twice as dangerous

At the moment, Sobolev has 4 goals and 4 assists in the RPL. To this we can also add the ball scored against Fakel in the Russian Cup. Since July 31, only in one match of the championship, Alexander did not score with effective actions – when Spartak lost to Dynamo (0: 1). He regularly plays at the start and brings enormous benefits to the club. The forward’s progress was noted even by experts.

– I like Sobolev lately. He began to work on the football field. Stopped fiddling. It is most important. It will continue to act like this, and everything will work out, – Vladimir Ponomarev, a veteran of CSKA, said in an interview with RT.

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Of course, Sobolev is still Sobolev. He still argues with the judges, provokes opponents, sometimes feigns. But this is typical of many attackers – the same Artyom Dziuba’s mouth also never closes. What about Luis Suarez, Diego Costa, Zlatan Ibrahimovic? All of them, too, would not have achieved anything by remaining goodies.

The main thing is that Sobolev now not only talks, but also plays. Compared to last season, he has greatly improved many of his performance. For example, now Alexander has noticeably improved in the underplay and makes one and a half times more key passes per match (2.19 vs. 1.63). The statistics also show that Sobolev has become twice as likely to be in scoring positions with the ball. If we calculate the average xG for 90 minutes (expected goals) from each time the forward has the ball, then this figure will be equal to 0.91. Last season, Sobolev had a modest 0.49 in this column.

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Russian Giroud

Under Abascal, Sobolev is turning (or even has already turned) into a multifunctional center forward, who does not have to score at all in order to be useful. Promes can also send the ball into the goal, and Alexander can just play along with him. For this, Sobolev, as it turned out, has all the necessary qualities.

Firstly, he is able to deploy a great attack with the help of passes, being with his back to the goal. Secondly, he himself can improve his own position due to competent body play (in this way he scored several goals). Thirdly, Sobolev suddenly showed a highly developed game intuition. He knows when to make a cut pass, play back or turn to the wing. And what a wonderful heel pass he cut to Shamar Nicholson in the match against Lokomotiv!

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With its dimensions, Sobolev has very decent equipment. This makes him a kind of Russian counterpart to Olivier Giroud. The French striker at one time also became noticeable on the world stage due to an unusual combination of physical data and non-standard football thinking. At the 2018 World Cup, Olivier never hit the target, but throughout the tournament he remained the most important link in the attack of the French team, which won gold. And at Wenger’s Arsenal, Giroud was involved in the most mind-blowing combinations, giving out passes with his heels and scoring with a scorpion kick.

Olivier Giroud / Photo: © Panoramic / ZUMA Press / Global Look Press

If Sobolev continues to progress in this direction, then Spartak will no longer need any Keith Balde. The main thing is that this successful segment should not turn out to be just a random burst of activity. After all, Sobolev had already published something similar in Samara. However, back then it was still quite raw. Now there is a strong feeling that Alexander has found his game.