Football Season Guide

After the mass exodus of players in the winter, the dreadful financial situation of Rubin saw this trend continuing this summer. With 12 squad members leaving and only 5 new signings made the Tatars have only 19 first-team members at the minute, from them 3 goalkeepers. Coach Berdyev is a legend in Russia though and, with lots of players willing to play for him, Rubin are still full of hope that before the end of August they could add at least 5-6 players on loan, which could change the team’s expectations for the campaign significantly. As things stand Rubin are likely to play with three centre-backs and rely on their defence to achieve positive results. Currently the Tatars have a very solid goalkeeper in Dzhanaev, plus the arrivals of Chico and Uremovic mean that 7 of the 16 field players are typical centre-backs. Berdyev is famous for being a defensive mastermind and in 4 of the last 7 seasons the teams that he managed in Russia had the best defensive record come the end of the season. All that said, up field things look really bad at the minute and Rubin have only four inner midfielders on their books, from them two coming from the U19 squad and only Mogilevets with some decent experience at this level. Podberezkin will likely play behind Azmoun in the 5-3-1-1, or 3-5-1-1 depending on the positioning of the wing-backs formation, with the struggling for fitness for several years now Bukharov signed as a free agent just to provide the Iranian centre forward with some cover. With too many holes yet to fill, coach Berdyev is far from certain about his preferred starting line-up at the minute and he keeps changing the personnel and the system for almost every friendly fixture over the last three weeks in search of some answers. Due to be 39-years-old during the winter break Rubin’s captain Navas might not be able to be as influential for the team as he has been for years and, with the retirement of three other long-term servants this summer (Ryzhikov, Kuzmin and Karadeniz), Rubin might find themselves short of leaders on the pitch.