Российская премьер-лига
News We bring you all the best stats and figures from the matchday 13 fixtures in the Russian Premier Liga.
1 - Ruslan Litvinov crowned an impressive run of form for Spartak by bagging his first ever goal for the senior side. An awkward Rostov had made life difficult until Litvinov powered a fantastic header into the far corner of Sergey Pesyakov’s net. Sadly for him, the moment was spoiled somewhat by Danil Glebov’s equaliser with the last kick of the match, but Litvinov did become the youngest Spartak player to score in the RPL since then 18-year-old Mikhail Ignatov netted three years ago against Enisey Krasnoyarsk.
3 - That Glebov strike was not just dramatic in its timing, but also extremely rare; although it was the third goal this season for the 21-year-old, he had only managed one in his first four campaigns in the RPL - a run of 61 games.
3 - Rubin Kazan finally threw the winless monkey off their back by beating CSKA Moscow with a last-gasp Mikhail Kostyukov winner to bring some measure of respite after sliding into the bottom half of the table. The late victory made it three wins against CSKA in a row for the first time ever; traditionally they have struggled against the Armymen, only winning three of the 16 matches prior to their current winning streak.
5 - Claudinho has been in electrifying form of late, and continued his hot streak in the 4-1 win at home to Dynamo Moscow with a clever finish after just seven minutes, lifting the ball over Ivan Ordets’ challenge and slotting home his third RPL goal of the season. It was his second goal in consecutive games against Moscow clubs after his stunner last weekend against Spartak, and marked his fifth direct goal contribution in his last five league games.
6 - Lokomotiv may have ended up winning in Nizhny Novgorod, but once again they conceded the first goal. In fact, they have been behind seven times this season already, and yet they have picked up some points in six of those games (W3, D3), to claim 12 points from losing positions - at least twice as many as any other team.
11 - It is almost becoming a little repetitive, but Gamid Agalarov was yet again the goalscorer and match winner for Ufa as they claimed a crucial 1-0 win at home to Akhmat Grozny. The young striker has now scored a remarkable 11 goals already - four more than his nearest challengers in the goalscorers’ race, Sardar Azmoun and Artem Dzyuba - out of a team total of 13.
12 - Krasnodar will be rueing their finishing - or poor luck - after they somehow failed to trouble the scoresheet at home to Krylia Sovetov this weekend. The RPL’s second-highest goalscorers peppered the visitors goal with 17 shots, eight on target, including twice hitting the crossbar in the first half. They have now hit the woodwork 12 times already this season - four more times than any other team - having only done so nine times in the whole of last season.
17 - Lokomotiv Moscow’s number 17, Rifat Zhemaletdinov, was again involved on the scoresheet with a wonderfully taken goal away to Nizhny Novgorod this weekend. When he danced inside a crowd of players and fired home, he reached 17 direct RPL goal contributions (8 goals & 9 assists) this calendar year - only Artem Dzyuba has more (21) in this period.
78 - Mateo Cassierra’s double against Arsenal Tula took the Colombian forward up to five goals for the season, but his first set two records. By scoring after just 78 seconds, he was responsible not only for the fastest goal scored this season, but also the fastest in Sochi’s brief top-flight history.
144 - Death, taxes, and Artem Dzyuba scoring; the Zenit striker broke yet another record by adding to his side’s confident win, notching his 144th top-flight goal to go clear of Oleg Veretennikov as the highest goalscorer in Russian championships history. Dzyuba’s Indian Summer is all the more remarkable when you consider he has scored almost a third of the record tally in the last two and half seasons, with his two highest scoring campaigns coming in the last two seasons.
