Spartak Moscow 1-1 Rostov
Saturday 30 October, Otkritie Arena

Goals: Spartak - Litvinov 78’; Rostov - Glebov 90+5’
Man of the Match: Ruslan Litvinov (Spartak)

Ruslan Litvinov thought he had struck a late winner for Spartak with his first ever goal for the club as Rostov had looked to be frustrating their hosts - but with the last touch of the game Daniil Glebov snatched a share of the spoils

A certain level of nerves characterised periods of Spartak’s performance against Rostov, as a rare appearance from Aleksandr Selikhov almost handed the visitors a messy lead in the first half. Selikhov spilled a harmless cross which was thankfully cleared off the line.

Georgi Dzhikia was then called into action just before the hour mark to sweep up a gentle goal-bound effort after an earlier Dmitry Poloz shot had grazed past the post when the recent Russia call-up probably should have done better.

Eventually though the deadlock was broken by academy graduate Ruslan Litvinov. Zelimkhan Bakaev had been instrumental in most of Spartak’s attacking threat after coming on, and it was his weighted lofted pass that fed Mikhail Ignatov to force a save from Sergey Pesyakov. From the resulting corner though, there was little Pesyakov could do about Litvinov’s brilliantly taken header from some distance.

With four minutes of added time already up, a harmless Spartak free kick was booted back into their half by Maksim Osipenko more in hope than expectation. Nikolay Komlichenko won the flick-in header, however, to give Glebov one last chance - and that was all he needed, holding off a challenge to lob Selikhov from the edge of the box with the very last touch.

Spartak remain eighth on 18 points, while Rostov stay 12th on 13 points.

Next RPL fixtures: Sunday 7 November - Rostov vs Rubin; Spartak vs Lokomotiv