Football Season Guide

CSKA Moscow are getting ready for another campaign on the back of their third league title in the past four seasons. They have established themselves as the most reliable and efficient side in the league in recent years and there can be no other aim but to challenge for the top honours in the new season. The Army Men do not look to the rest of the league from a particularly strong position, however, as they lost their key attacking weapon from last season in Ahmed Musa. The Nigerian underwent a great transformation over the last year from a player frustratingly lacking in end product into a devastatingly direct and clinical speedy striker that had the beating of the defences in the league. But having just about clung onto him during the winter transfer market, CSKA could not stop their prized asset from signing for Premier League champions Leicester. He will be almost impossible to replace but the man tasked with that is Lacina Traore. The big Ivorian enjoyed a couple of good seasons in Russia with Kuban and Anzhi but has regressed badly since joining Monaco more than two years ago. He has not stayed fit or scored regularly for a while and it is a big risk for Leonid Slutsky to rely on him mostly as the lead striker in the side. Moreover, he is a completely different type of striker than Musa and it is doubtful that he will fit into CSKA’s more intricate passing game, given that he is more suited to direct football. Nevertheless, there is little other change in the squad and it is a case of business as usual in the other department as Slutsky expects his trusted generals at the back and midfield destructor Pontus Wernbloom to do what they know best. It will be fascinating to see the process of starlet Aleksandr Golovin after he captured the imagination in the spring with some superb displays. Anyway, CSKA will struggle to defend the title with the current squad and even if they do have bags of experience and know-how, the threat of resurgent Spartak Moscow and Krasnodar, apart from that of traditional recent rivals Zenit, should be taken seriously.