Titov explained why Zhirkov, who retired, is stronger than Spartak defender Ryabchuk

Former Spartak captain and coach Yegor Titov explained why he does not consider Red-White defender Oleg Ryabchuk stronger than ex-footballer of the Russian national team Yuri Zhirkov in his current form.

— After the match in memory of Tsymbalar, you said that Ryabchuk is not yet better than the current Zhirkov. It turns out that Spartak, with a not very high-quality foreign player, is blocking the way for Khlusevich, who is no worse?

— You probably saw the match in memory of Tsymbalar. Where did Zhirkov’s skill go? Nowhere. I don’t want to say that Ryabchuk is a bad football player. I said this because Yura Zhirkov once again confirmed that he is a great player, it was not for nothing that he played for Chelsea in the Champions League. At the age of 35-36 he played for Zenit! This confirms everything. If you think that today’s Ryabchuk is stronger than Zhirkov, then we can talk to you about this topic.

— It turns out that signing Ryabchuk is a strengthening?

– You provoke me. A person who has come to a new championship needs time. I have been playing football since I was three years old and I see strong football players. And I can see who can’t adapt yet and so on. I hope that Ryabchuk will reveal his potential at Spartak. In our Spartak of the nineties, he would probably have been exposed. Oleg Ivanovich Romantsev did it easily,” Metaratings.ru quotes Titov.

Zhirkov is a five-time champion of Russia, a six-time winner of the country’s Cup and Super Cup, winner of the English Championship, Cup and Super Cup, and winner of the UEFA Cup. With the Russian team he became a bronze medalist at the 2008 European Championship.

Ryabchuk became a Spartak player in early August. Since then, the 25-year-old defender has played seven matches for the team in all tournaments and has not been effective.

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• Zhirkov said that he was pleased to receive an invitation to the match against the Spartak legends