Ramzan Kadyrov 2014/15 - Rolling Eastern European Football / Minor Despot Thread

I feared that would be the thread bump already :(

Yes, that was horrific. No speculation as to motive in the press yet.

AVB sent off during Zenit's hopeless 3-1 home loss to Krylya Sovetov:

http://youtu.be/8EG6fQLP6wc

They lost to Krasnodar at home last time.

fleetwood town under their 'massively driven' technical director now have some liaison with lokomotiv tashkent

https://twitter.com/ftfc/status/645173116532994048

https://twitter.com/ftfc/status/645933638203371520

https://twitter.com/gretz1982/status/615530398794285056

Interesting season. Up until two months ago about six teams could plausibly have won the league, including Rostov and Krasnodar. It looked for while like Zenit might recover from an appalling start to overhaul CSKA but, on the final day, they can't finish higher than third - meaning they are out of the CL next year. Barring a huge upset CSKA will win again and Rostov will come second. AVB is on his way back to Portugal and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a couple of Zenit's stars jump ship.

CSKA have been pretty unimpressive. Musa and Dzagoev have had solid seasons but the players they have brought in - Olanare, Strandberg and Tkachev - are unlikely to help them make much of the European campaign next year. Amir Natkho, cousin of the excellent Israeli-Circassian player Bibras Natkho, might be interesting though.

The relegation places are much more exciting. Two points separate five teams, including Kuban and a wretched Dinamo Moscow, and any of them could be saved, relegated outright or go into the playoff. Dinamo have Zenit at home today and, if the latter bother to turn up, they are probably doomed.

This is great fun. Saransk are down and Zenit have just scored twice against Dinamo which would put them down as well. It would be the first time since they were founded 93 years ago that they'd be playing outside the top division. They're the only team to have never been relegated. They started the year with the hapless Boris Rotenberg jr at right back, presumably as a favour to his well-connected billionaire father (both are on the U.S. sanctions list) and have somehow become even worse since dropping him. I think the only thing that could even put them in the relegation playoffs rather than the straight drop would be Ufa losing vs Spartak - they are currently 2-1 up against a team with no reason to do Dinamo any favours.