Football Season Guide

Summer was a time of changes in Grozny and, after dramatically missing out on a top 4 finish, the Chechens first parted ways with their long-serving coach Rakhimov. They appointed the experienced and very successful ex-Krasnodar boss Oleg Kononov. The other major change was that of the name of the club and as of the 2017/18 season Terek officially will be replaced by Akhmat for the team from Grozny. The new boss was sad to see his talented playmaker, Kuzyaev, join Zenit and, as so many changes were happening in the structure of the newly named club and it took time for the new members of the board to be selected, Akhmat found themselves a bit behind with their transfer activity. Six more players on top of Kuzyaev left, while only three new replacements are signed so far and the gaffer is a bit short on numbers. Akhmat are particularly missing central midfielders after the departure of Kuzyaev, Piriz and Ozdoev. At the minute, the vastly experienced Oleg Ivanov and the two newcomers Shvets and Ravanelli are the only typical central midfielders on the books and, with the last two being unknown quantities, some pundits are worried. That said, Kononov is famous for developing players from the junior ranks and trusting them in the first team so, in this first season as Akhmat, the Chechens are expected to give a chance to at least three or four such players. The selling of Godzyur means that Gorodov will definitely be the starter in goal, while the arrival of Sampaio adds another South American centre-back to the already impressive options in that part of the field. Captain, Utsiev, will continue to dominate the right-back position while the young Iranian, Mohammadi, shone brightly last season down the other flank and he is expected to be even better this year. The versatile Pliev is capable of replacing both of them when this is needed. Up front, Mbenge ended the previous campaign in sizzling form and if he maintains it under Kononov, he will be keeping Sadaev and Balaj on the bench but the latter is showing impressive form in pre-season so he seems likely to start the campaign as the preferred target man. Akhmat have enough depth down the wings and, as Kononov is known to prefer quick actions, the contribution from these zones will be very important. Akhmat reduced their budget significantly for the new season but they still have a nice core of players and also Kononov is famous for finding cheap players that grow to be regulars for the teams he manages, which many think will be the case again this year.