Football Season Guide

Akhmat Grozny had a fantastic season last time out and were able to beat their expectations by securing a top-half finish, with Andrey Talalaev in charge for his second successive campaign. It was their highest finish since the 2016/17 season and, despite a dip near the tail end of last season, they recovered and managed to finish the season strongly. Akhmat have not completed too much business so far but they will be missing Daniil Utkin who has signed for Rostov after finishing his loan from Krasnodar. He will be a big miss but they have brought in Vladimir Iljin who is likely to start. Aleksandr Troshechkin was brought in in the winter transfer market but he will hope to have more support going forward now with Iljin, as well as Ivan Oleynikov. Yuri Zhuravlev comes in from Ufa to help support the defence, following the departure of Aleksandr Putsko and Vitaliy Lystsov, whilst Darko Todorovic also completed a full transfer, following his initial loan. Akhmat will need some additional support and depth in midfield if they are to perform at a similar level ahead of the new season as they are currently looking thin in that position. There should not be too many changes to the starting line-up as we head closer to the new season but it seems like Akhmat will need extra additions to perform as they did last, especially in terms of depth. A tough start could make things difficult early on as they face Spartak Moscow, Sochi and Zenit in their opening four fixtures.