Clinical Spartak winning performance tainted by Arsenal’s injury-time flurry

Arsenal Tula 2-3 Spartak Moscow
Saturday 20 June, Arsenal Stadium

Goals: Lutsenko 90+4’, Lesovoy 90+9’; Sobolev 45’, Rasskazov 66’, Ponce 78’

Man of the Match: Georgi Dzhikia

Aleksandr Sobolev scored his first goal for Spartak Moscow with some individual brilliance before Nikolay Rasskazov’s header and Ezequiel Ponce’s rocket sealed a comfortable 3-2 win over Arsenal Tula. The gloss was taken off by Lutsenko’s 10th goal of the season and Daniil Lesovoy’s rebound in added time.

Pavel Maslov was a surprise inclusion in Spartak’s three-man defence alongside Samuel Gigot and Dzhikia. The former FC Tyumen academy graduate had little to deal with in the opening half an hour, whereas Dzhikia needed a desperate lunge to block Sergey Tkachev’s snapshot after 10 minutes.

Spartak’s attacks were largely characterised by using Aleksandr Sobolev’s aerial presence and the pace of Jordan Larsson and Ayrton Lucas. After 22 minutes Zelimkhan Bakaev’s carefully weighted pass released Ayrton towards the byline, but Gia Grigalava and Goran Causic combined to hack clear his cutback.

Just before the half-hour mark, a deep inswinging cross from the right found Maksim Belyaev completely free, but the centre back could only scuff it straight at Aleksandr Maksimenko. 

It was a moment of finesse from Sobolev that broke the deadlock. Faced with Belyaev, a body swerve sold his marker inside before a pin-point left-foot finish across Egor Shamov into the very bottom corner brought his first goal in a Spartak shirt.

Seven minutes after half time Maksimenko had to be alert to maintain Spartak’s advantage. Tkachev was on hand to smash Evgeniy Lutsenko’s chipped cutback low and hard, but the keeper was down comfortably. Lutsenko almost equalled his career-best league goal tally with a towering header before the hour mark, but his effort drifted wide. 

Halfway through the second period Spartak took control of the game. Ayrton’s quick feet and burst of pace beat his marker before drifting a cross towards the back post where Nikolay Rasskazov was lurking to loop a controlled header back over Shamov.

Their lead could have been extended five minutes later when Jordan Larsson broke free with Aleks Kral and Guus Til ahead of him. An incisive ball behind the defence released Kral to shoot across Shamov, and although he could only spill the save at full stretch into Til’s path, Kostadinov was on hand to slide in and clear.

With 12 minutes remaining the third goal arrived. Larsson latched onto a loose first touch from Giorgi Kostadinov to burst forward, nutmegged the backtracking Bulgarian for good measure, then chipped a delightful ball over the top towards Ezequiel Ponce, who took one touch before lashing an unstoppable rocket over Shamov from 12 yards out.

Maksimenko thought he had ensured a clean sheet when he flew across goal to keep out an effort from Danil Lesovoy, but he could do nothing to prevent a bullet header consolation from Arsenal’s top goalscorer Lutsenko in added time.

The drama still wasn’t over. With 98 minutes on the clock, Lesovoy stepped up to smash home the rebound after Maksimenko had saved his penalty, which had been given thanks to VAR after Eshchenko flicked a boot at Grigalava’s stopped head.

Arsenal Tula travel to take on FC Rostov on Saturday 27 June, while Spartak are at home to FC Ufa on the same day.

Arsenal Tula: Shamov, Belyaev, Kostadinov, Grigalava, Kovalev (Banda 74’), Gorbatenko (Panteleev 81’), Causic, Alvarez (Volodko 86’), Tkachev (Minaev 74’), Lesovoy, Lutsenko

Spartak Moscow: Maksimenko, Maslov, Gigot, Dzhikia, Rasskazov, Kral, Zobnin (Umyarov 84’), Bakaev (Til 62’), Ayrton (Eshchenko 77’), Sobolev (Ponce 62’), Larsson (Mirzov 84’)