Ex-Chelsea player Dan Petrescu’s reign as Dynamo Moscow manager begins this weekend as Dynamo seek to bounce back from four defeats in four games in the Russian Premier League this season.
With his new team bottom of the table, Petrescu’s first task will be to rebuild the team’s confidence in a home game against Chechen side Terek Grozny on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Spartak Moscow will try to recover from a 5-0 thrashing by Zenit St. Petersburg when they take on former champions Rubin Kazan on Saturday, while Zenit face Anzhi in a clash between two injury-ravaged title contenders.
Petrescu should have a full-strength squad at his disposal, and first-choice goalkeeper Anton Shunin could return after he was rested for the two games the team played under caretaker coach Dmitry Khokhlov following the Dynamo defeat.
Young midfielders Artur Yusupov and Alexander Sapeta are likely to stake a claim to start against Terek after playing well for Russia’s B team against Belgium under-19s in midweek.
For Terek, midfielder Mauricio could return despite the fact that “it’s wrong to say he’s 100 percent ready”, coach Stanislav Cherchesov said on the team website Thursday. Midfielder Oleg Ivanov is suspended.
Zenit’s demolition of Spartak last week ended former Valencia coach Unai Emery’s honeymoon period at the Moscow club and was a swift change of fortunes after thrashing Dynamo the week before.
Spartak will be without ex-Celtic winger Aiden McGeady, who was sent off against Zenit for a dangerous tackle.
Rubin, level on nine points with Spartak, have won all of their last three games since an opening-day defeat to FC Krasnodar, although they have yet to face a team in the top half of the table.
Zenit will be without captain Alexander Anyukov when they take on Anzhi, while several Zenit first-team players were in action Wednesday for Russia.
Midfielder Roman Shirokov and strikers Alexander Kerzhakov and Alexander Bukharov are all injury doubts for the St. Petersburg side.
Anzhi could be without their first-choice strike pairing of Samuel Eto’o and Lacina Traore, meaning that on-loan youngster Fyodor Smolov could either start on his own up front, or be supported by Mehdi Carcela-Gonzalez.
“[Eto’o] has a cold and we’ve decided that it’s better for him to skip the training session," Anzhi coach Guus Hiddink said Friday.
"Tomorrow we’ll see whether he is able to play against Zenit.”
In the rest of the weekend’s action, Lokomotiv Moscow travel to FC Volga on Saturday, while Krasnodar host FC Rostov.
On Sunday, CSKA Moscow travel to minnows Mordovia Saransk, while Monday sees Krylya Sovetov host Amkar Perm and Petrescu’s former team FC Kuban visit Alania Vladikavkaz.
