Sunday, May 07, will be one of the defining games in the fight for survival. Nizhny Novgorod are the worst club of 2023 in the RPL. The team has produced a streak of eight defeats in nine games. Ural are not that far behind either. Viktor Goncharenko's side have five defeats in their last six games if you take RPL specifically. Ural have clearly got carried away with their exploits in the Russian Cup. The team were focused on making a breakthrough in the tournament, but sacrificed the championship. Initially, it seemed that the team from Ekaterinburg would pick up a few points in the RPL to be safe, but ended up at the finish line as a candidate for relegation. Ural have a margin of just four points over Nizhny Novgorod. A defeat would spoil the situation badly. The Cup final did not pan out either. Urals gave everything they had to face CSKA. It turned out very decent. On aggregate, the Army Men only beat their opponents 3-2. At the same time, it gave Viktor Goncharenko some headaches in terms of the calendar. Another Cup match against Krasnodar has been added. Ural need to play on two fronts somehow. The coach does not have a big group of reserves. Also the main midfielder Yuriy Gazinsky is out for the rest of the season. Ural's main weakness in 2023 is the attacking line. The team's scoring rate is lower than Khimki's in RPL. The numbers are almost the worst in the entire league. Only Torpedo are lower. Ural have scored six goals in eight games. Nizhny Novgorod have similar struggles. Only the quality of the players on average is much lower than that of Ural. The management are confused about which coaches they should pick. The club initially entrusted Artem Gorlov, a young specialist, but after a series of defeats they brought in Sergey Yuran. The experienced coach didn't do much to improve the situation. Nizhny Novgorod barely beat Krylia Sovetov at home, but failed to pick up a single point in the remaining three games. Yuran has predictably built a pragmatic defensive football style of play. Under the new coach, Nizhny Novgorod have indeed improved their defensive performance. Volga's opponents began to create fewer scoring chances at the club's goal. There was significant bad luck. So far, Nizhny Novgorod's opponents have scored from situations that aren't obvious. Offensively, on the other hand, things are very sad. Under Juran, the club has the worst goal-scoring record in four games. Even the game against Krylia at home didn't help here. Nizhny Novgorod have no scorer and no creative midfielders. In the next game we'll have a tough fight for survival in the RPL. An important factor against Ural is fatigue and frustration after the cup game. The opponents have never broken the head-to-head total in their head-to-head encounters. The pattern should be confirmed now as well.