The continuing adventures of Ramzan Kadyrov and Aiden McGeady: Russian Premier League 2011/12

how has dzagoev been this season

also keisuke honda is supposedly out of contract

Dzagoev has been good. Playing really well with Musa and Love in recent weeks.

Honda's contract finishes in December, I think. CSKA want to keep him but he had been holding off signing a new deal. He has been linked to Lazio for a while.

i thought he was better than lazio, and i'd be very surprised if a mid ranking serie a team offer the best bosman contract to an at least europa league level midfielder with uhm valuable commercial prospects

CSKA completed the double today, beating Anzhi on penalties.

Despite bringing in Hiddink, Willian, Lass and Traore, there's still a pretty significant gulf in quality between them and the top two.

CSKA won the supercup comfortably today - beating Zenit 3-0 (two scored by Honda who'll be staying put until the winter break).

The only vaguely interesting transfer involving either club, so far, has been Tymoschuk back to Zenit. Anzhi, on the other hand have spent £45m on Kokorin, Denisov, Ionov and Chris Samba. idk why they keep buying midfielders and strikers rather than a decent defence.

The Ukrainian league has started too. Looking forward to seeing the new generation of Shakhtar imports tomorrow. Fred might be the one to watch but Fernando, Ferreyra and Wellington Nem all look interesting.

Anzhi seem to be one of the more boring nouveau riche clubs around.

Is Shakhtar's cadre of Brazilians just an easy work permit thing or is there a more interesting relation going on?

I think it's a combination of a good scouting network, easy work permits and more financial muscle than the Dutch clubs these players would probably have started their European careers with ten years ago. The club made a huge effort to accommodate Matuzalem when he was there - buying Brazilians they thought would fit in with his style and getting the coaching staff to learn Portuguese. I guess the young players know it's going to be easier to acclimatise there.

Spartak Moscow are doing something similar now.

Looks like Hulk might be getting a six match suspension for pushing the ref (albeit fairly gently) after getting two yellows for dissent. Zenit beat Volga 3-1 in the end, Danny getting a hat-trick.

Anzi continue to be awful - losing 1-0 against Rostov at home last night, which apparently prompted a bunch of local kids to throw rocks through the windows of coaches carrying visiting fans.

There's speculation that Rene Meulensteen has been sacked after two weeks and the entire Anzhi squad has been put up for sale.

http://rt.com/news/russian-football-anzhi-sell-134/

result for willian. good bet for spurs now i should imagine once the inevitable happens. could do worse than lacina traore too possibly?

think we all know where big chrissy is going

Kokorin might be useful too.

The selling continues. Denisov, Kokorin and Zhirkov sold in a package deal of 45m euros to Dynamo Moscow. Shatov was sold yesterday iirc.

shartov

Eto'o's agent has said that he's not leaving unless he finds someone else who'll pay him £300,000 a week. It's at least four times more than he should be getting atm.

Boussoufa is off to Lokomotiv.

The RPL should actually be stronger this season with the stockpile of handy midfielders Anzhi amassed being scattered to the winds.

What's their masterplan though? Sell every expensive/big player and do it solely with own youth? What's the deal?

I think they'll probably try to keep some of their mid-range players (Samba, Jucilei, maybe Traore) but youth / players who really want to be there seems to be the angle they're taking. It has always been a strange set-up - all the players live and train in Moscow (1800km away) and just fly in for games. Maybe they'll aim for more of a local emphasis.

Yes, that last bit is certainly true.

Shaping up to be a really interesting season. CSKA were shocking early on but have rediscovered a bit of form just as Zenit have fallen apart. Zenit are still top but they have taken two points from four games. Spartak are looking great with Movsisyan up front and Lokomotiv are vastly more reliable than last season. Should be close all the way.

McGeady has been barred from training with the first team which will intensify the rumours about him leaving in January. He had been in good form but still has disciplinary issues.

http://i.imgur.com/0XkIoGu.jpg

where else to post this tribute to a hero of soviet labour and race relations

ShariVari, is this a fair assessment of Aleksandr Kokorin?

How do you rate him?

I thought that Anji had overpaid for him at the time but I am starting to think that I may have been wrong. He is fast, creative and a fine finisher. He has been very good for Dinamo this session but I think it's a little early to talk about him moving to a 'top' European club just yet. He is not quite at that level but has the potential to reach it.

Cheers mate.

Pav has just scored twice in eight minutes to bring Lokomotiv back into the title race. They drew nil nil with Anji last week and were trailing at home to Terek.

If it stays like this, they're two points ahead of Zenit and four ahead of CSKA, having played a game more than both. CSKA are arguably in the best form but AVB should probably win the title in his first season.

Rondon scores to make it 1-0 to Zenit. Fairly even match so far.

Spaletti's last seven games saw Zenit win once. If it stays like this, AVB's record will be eight wins out of eight.

Pavlyucheno rises from the bench...

Equaliser! Tkachyov. Season back on. Lokomotiv need another though.

Zenit, who were ahead of Loko by a point with two matches to play, have just gone 2-1 down at home to Dinamo with half an hour to go. Will be interesting to see if AVB throws on Arshavin, who is currently on the bench wearing what looks like a Slanket. Or if he's got a plan b at all, actually.

Lol. 3-1. AVB has brought Spurs' comedy defending with him.

Kuranyi makes it four. This is crazy.

Players have been taken off after a pitch invasion. Arshavin trundles off, still in his Slanket.

Not sure that they can restart. Stewards are outnumbered about eight to one.

The feed has gone black. At least one of the Dinamo players was punched by a Zenit fan and a couple from both teams had to be restrained from fighting back. Order has been restored and there was a line of riot police between the stand with the Zenit ultras and the pitch but there are so many hardcore mentalists in that end, it would be a risk to restart.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/embarchie/slanket.jpg

Lokomotiv are bottling it as well. Rostov 2-0 up now.

Looks like a draw vs Loko will be enough for CSKA to get a third successive title. CSKA are nominally my team and their run of nine consecutive wins to come from nowhere has been great but I feel for Lokomotiv.

Final round of the season kicks off at 15:30 today. If CSKA beat Lokomotiv, they're champions. If CSKA and Lokomotiv draw and Zenit beat Kuban, Zenit are champions. If Zenit fail to win and Lokomotiv beat CSKA, Lokomotiv are champions. To make things more fun, there are only two CL places up for grabs so one team that could be within 90 minutes of winning the title will definitely be in the Europa League.

was villas-boas expected to win the league when he was appointed?

Not really, but he has been for the last couple of weeks. He put them in a position where they should really have won but the draw with Loko and getting routed by Dinamo, combined with CSKA's form, put paid to that. Second is probably where they were expecting to finish but it'll still be bitter given where they were.

You can stream the RPL for free via their YouTube channel now, though with the state of the league at the moment, it’s not always clear why you would wish to.