In the winter off-season, the leaders of the championship did not dare to launch major transfer campaigns. Instead, the favorites preferred to patch up the holes, strengthening only problematic positions.

Alexis Duarte

Cerro Porteño → Spartak Moscow

Photo: © Pool / Pool / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

“Spartak needed a defender, and the Muscovites did the right thing in the transfer market. Buying Paraguayan Alexis Duarte looks promising. Despite his rather young age, he is a very experienced footballer. In the local championship, by the age of 22, he had already played under a hundred matches. Plus, he was involved in the national team at different ages.

Duarte was also a captain at Cerro Porteño. At such a young age, they don’t just give a bandage. Surely he has a strong character, which is very important for a successful game in Spartak. If everything works out, then it will be possible to sell the Paraguayan with a big profit.

Ilya Agapov

PARI NN → CSKA

Photo: © PFC CSKA

The Red-Blues take Agapov, who seems to have shown himself well in PARI NN. He is, of course, a promising player, but very young. There is no certainty that the player will immediately be able to fulfill the tasks assigned to CSKA. In Nizhny Novgorod, he solved completely different goals.

He was not a defensive leader. In “PARI NN” the leading roles were played by Masoero and Gotsuk. Perhaps this acquisition is only for the future, but it is very difficult to predict whether he will prove himself in the future as a game-defining defender.

Vladimir Sychevoi

Orenburg → Wings of the Soviets

Photo: © Vasily Ponomarev / Match TV

In Orenburg, apparently, they are not particularly worried about the departure of the team’s top scorer. The Latin American attack group is creatively manifesting itself. She is able to cope without Sychev in the attack. Plus, after the disqualification, Vladimir Obukhov returned to big football.

For the Wings, the acquisition of a striker of this level is a great success. He should help the team from Samara to replace the players who have left lately. Osinkin is able to competently integrate a central forward into the game of a team that prefers to attack on the flanks, and in the center the team is doing well. Samarans will create chances for Sychev, and he knows how to score.

Sergey Pinyaev, Maxim Glushenkov

Wings of the Soviets → Lokomotiv

Photo: © FC Lokomotiv

Even before the winter break, Lokomotiv was well staffed with qualified players. The acquisition of Glushenkov and Pinyaev should help the team leave the zone of transitional matches. In Samara, the players came out at the start and played a big role. Both were called up by Valery Karpin to the Russian national team in November.

True, questions remain about the motives of the players. It would be more logical to finish the current championship in the Wings of the Soviets. There they regularly started at the start and enjoyed the trust of the coaching staff. It was necessary to move to a higher level in the summer. And the choice in favor of Lokomotiv does not look like the best option. Both Glushenkov and Pinyaev would certainly find a place in the teams fighting for higher positions.

It will be interesting to see all the players who changed their club registration in the winter: will they manage to reach a new level, or at least show football of the same quality, or will they not justify the hopes placed on them.