Moscow “Lokomotiv” unsuccessfully spent the first half of the season in the championship of Russia and was among the contenders for relegation. However, in the spring part of the tournament, the team of Mikhail Galaktionov started with two victories. A peppy restart allows Sportbox.ru expert Alexander Bubnov to talk about the prospects of the “railroad” with a moderate degree of optimism.

“There are no claims to the arbitrator”

Lokomotiv managed to score a quick goal against Akhmat, which largely determined the outcome of the game. Sergey Pinyaev went one on one with goalkeeper Giorgi Shelia in the 11th minute and performed a great kick. However, by the middle of the first half, the “railroad” remained in the minority. The second yellow card was received by Stanislav Magkeev, who in this round replaced the disqualified Dmitry Barinov as a defensive midfielder.

There was still enough time ahead to recoup, but Akhmat somehow wilted after a missed goal, and the team frankly did not succeed in the game. Lokomotiv, left with ten men, acted with discipline, defended in an organized manner and, in general, looked better than the opponent, who had an advantage of one player.

However, the situation for Muscovites became more complicated when, at the beginning of the second half, Maxim Nenakhov received a second yellow card. There can be no claims against the referee here, he punished the Loko players for their work and in general worked out the match normally. But the guests, in any case, were left with an unpleasant fact – for more than half an hour of the meeting they needed to play with nine of them already.

It was extremely difficult to build some kind of constructive game in such a situation. Lokomotiv acted selflessly and even made periodic attempts to counterattack. In many ways, goalkeeper Ilya Lantratov helped his team to survive, who did not allow Hamid Agalarov and Vladimir Ilyin to score. Akhmat, of course, had an advantage after the break, but did not convert their chances.

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Judging by the opening matches of the spring part of the season, Lokomotiv has good chances to eventually move away from the play-off zone. The team in the game with “Rostov” showed good movement from the first to the last minutes, deservedly won. As a result of the confrontation with Akhmat, it became clear that the “railroad workers” were physically well prepared, otherwise they would not have been able to successfully operate nine of them for a long period. The newcomers have come to the court, the gained momentum will give confidence in the next rounds. I believe that at the end of the season we will see the team somewhere in the middle of the standings.

Watch live broadcasts of MIR RPL matches on the Match TV federal channel and the thematic channels of the holding, as well as on matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru websites.