Disassembled Dziuba’s hat-trick: Rostov’s problem pressing and dominance in the fight helped

Already in the top 3 scorers of Loko in RPL-2022/23.

Artem Dziuba burst into Russian football with a miss in the cup derby and a rich dialogue with Nobel Arustamyan. It seemed that it was already impossible to get any brighter, but Dzyuba decided not to stop – he scored a hat-trick in a game against one of his favorite coaches.

Dzyuba’s achievement is noteworthy for various reasons:

• according to Opta , over the past 15 years, only Anders Dreyer (in September 2021 he scored three times against Ural) and Yura Movsisyan (shipped three against Terek in March 2013) managed to do this in their debut match;

• consolidated his lead in hat-tricks (6) and became the first in history to cross the mark of 150 goals in the Russian championship;

• brought Lokomotiv its first victory since October (then they beat Torpedo with a creak – 1:0) and broke into the top 3 scorers of Loko (Anton Miranchuk – 5, Ivan Ignatiev – 4). Dzyuba is already second in goals from the game (Ignatiev is ahead with 4 goals).

Dziuba’s performance is ensured by Valery Karpin’s unexpected pressure plan, prepared interactions with partners (they adjusted well to his discounts) and high-quality serves.

Lokomotiv easily broke the strange pressure of Rostov

In the first half, Valery Karpin used a new hybrid defensive scheme. In the compact block, Rostov switched to 5-4-1 (Komlichenko often became a right midfielder), and in the pressure formed a semblance of 3-5-2.

The problem was the disorganized transitions back and the lack of a good safety net. In some episodes, Golenkov and Komlichenko met defenders, while Bayramyan, Selyava and Utkin played in the central zone. The five defenders remained behind (Silyanov-Melekhin-Glebov-Osipenko-Chernov), against which Loko’s attacking four were widely positioned. Pinyaev, Dzyuba, Glushenkov and Kamano attracted the attention of the defenders, leaving free Tiknizyan and Nenakhov, who did not rise very high (Chernov and Silyanov faced a choice: to pull out or not).

Periodically, “Rostov” did not have any system. Here Bayramyan remained against Nenakhov and Barinov, and on the right Silyanov nevertheless ran to Tiknizyan. Khoren reached for the ball, but Karpukas picked it up and moved it to the left, from where Silyanov had already fled to the defense, while a huge free zone opened up in front of Nair (Utkin played in the depths, and Selyava met Karpukas).