Saburtalo Tbilisi were the unfortunate victims of Zenit St. Petersburg’s lethal attack as the Georgian side were hammered 4-0 on Thursday. Aleksey Sutormin, Wilmar Barrios, Oleg Shatov and 17-year-old midfielder Danil Shamkin bagged the goals for the Russian Premier League champions.

Although the scoreline means Zenit have now averaged over five goals per game, of more value to Sergey Semak was the game time for Brazilian record signing Malcom and returning loanee Emiliano Rigoni.

In the 20th minute, Sutormin’s header from Douglas Santos’ cross was deflected wide. From the resulting short corner, Malcom chipped a cross into the six-yard area where Sutormin made no mistake with the loose ball at close range.

Artem Dzyuba should have converted a free header from six yards out six minutes later but sent the ball over the bar. Ilya Vorobyov - who’d only come off the bench for Malcom moments earlier - wasted another good chance after Sebastian Driussi had created space for him.

On 38 minutes Wilmar Barrios’ audacious reverse flick from near the byline was heading wide before it took a fortunate rebound off a defender and nestled in the net.

Around the hour mark Zenit had a period of intense pressure. Oleg Shatov had the confidence to dribble and shoot from distance to extend the lead to 3-0 shortly before Shamkin sealed the win.

Zenit take on CSKA Moscow next on Sunday 9 February.

Zenit 4-0 Saburtalo Tbilisi
6 February, Benidorm, Spain
Goals: Sutormin 21’, Barrios 38’, Shatov 60’, Shamkin 62’

Zenit first half: Lunev, Karavaev, Rakitskiy, Osorio, Santos, Musave, Barrios, Sutormin, Malcom (Vorobyov 31’), Driussi, Dzyuba
Second half: Vasyutin, Smolnikov, Ivanovic, Prokhin, Zhirkov, Ozdoev, Erokhin, Shamkin (Vorobyov 78’), Rigoni, Shatov, Azmoun