We have rounded up the best stats, numbers and highlights of the first matchday back after the winter break in the Russian Premier Liga.

1 - Yusuf Yazici could hardly have wished for a more impactful debut. The Turkish attacking midfielder was thrust in at the deep end into an away derby against Spartak Moscow, and scored a peach of a direct free kick to hand his new side the lead. It was the first direct set piece scored by the Armymen against Spartak in almost a decade.

3 - An utterly breathless end to the matchday saw Zenit under pressure to reclaim top spot after Dynamo had beaten Khimki on Saturday, and 10 minutes after half time everything was going swimmingly, with RPL debutant Yuri Alberto on the scoresheet and a comfortable 2-0 lead in the bag. A Lisakovich double later, however, and the unthinkable was on the cards - until Ivan Sergeev pounced in added time with a marvellous finish on his debut for the champions. It was the striker’s third goal against Rubin in three games this season, after bagging in both games for Krylia before the winter break.

6 - It seems there was no love lost between teams after the long winter break; within the first two matches back, there were already five red cards after two for Ural Ekaterinburg away to Nizhny Novgorod, two for Khimki and one for Dynamo Moscow. The Khimki 0-3 Dynamo match therefore registers as the busiest match of the RPL season for sendings off with three, while Leon Musaev’s sending off against his former side took the entire matchday up to six red cards - the most in a round of RPL fixtures this season, despite it being curtailed to just six fixtures after Rostov and Krasnodar’s home games were postponed.

10 - Fedor Smolov made a triumphant return to his boyhood club Dynamo Moscow after moving across the capital from Lokomotiv in the winter break, and marked the occasion with a wonderful solo goal to break the deadlock. The last time Smolov scored for the Blue-Whites came more than 10 years ago, way back in May 2011 when he bagged the only goal of the game against Krasnodar, for whom he would go on to become RPL top goalscorer twice.

12 - Ural Ekaterinburg have long struggled to score, and once again they failed to register on the scoresheet, as a late Nikolay Kalinsky penalty handed Nizhny Novgorod all three points. In fact, they are in danger of recording the lowest goals tally for a side to avoid relegation in the last decade; only Krylia Sovetov (19 in 2015/16) and Rubin Kazan (18 in 2019/20) have survived the dreaded relegation playoffs while scoring fewer than 20 goals. After 19 matchdays, they have only 12 goals to their name. Their foundation is solid though, with only three sides conceding fewer goals so far.

19 - It wasn’t just Yazici who made a goalscoring, man-of-the-match-winning debut; Aleksandr Troshechkin repeated the feat for Akhmat Grozny at home to Ufa as well. His 85th-minute header not only made him an instant hero at the Akhmat Arena, but extended the extraordinary record of Akhmat still not having drawn a game after 19 matchdays. This extended record is the longest stretch from the start of a season an RPL side has gone without drawing for at least seven seasons.