On Saturday, August 16th, Spartak will play against Zenit. This is a key match in the fifth round of the Russian Championship. Both teams are struggling: Spartak has only gathered four points, while Zenit has just one more. Currently, the two main bookmaker favourites of the championship are not in the top five.

Spartak is facing a major crisis. Dejan Stankovic has not added anything to the team since signing a new contract with the "red-and-whites". The club is currently experiencing a well-deserved decline. Spartak is struggling both in attack and in defence. There was a total failure against Lokomotiv. The tall defenders of the "red-and-whites" allowed Alexey Batrakov to slip past them twice - the talent scored a hat-trick.

Spartak is now completely dependent on Markinhos in attack. The foreign player is key to all actions. On the other flank, Pablo Solari is facing more problems. The Argentine is the worst by many statistical metrics. For example, Solari has the highest number of turnovers in the entire league.

Spartak added difficulties after their defeat to Makhachkala's Dynamo. Stankovic refreshed the squad and put out the youth team - it turned into a total failure. Anton Zabolotny is also not succeeding. The newcomer still hasn't scored a single goal.

Zenit is in a similar crisis. However, the club managed to boost morale in the Russian Cup. The St. Petersburg team crushed Rubin's reserves. Semak also used substitutes, but with a large number of foreigners - Zenit has two full squads, and in some positions, up to three players.

Sergei Semak also has difficulties in his relationships with the players. This season there has been a breakdown in relations with Maxim Glushenkov. After the match against Akhmat, the coach publicly raised complaints about goalkeeper Yevgeny Latyshonka. Additionally, the departure of goalkeeper coach Yuri Zhevnov is possible in the near future.

At the same time, Zenit appears to be stronger than Spartak in terms of play. They deserved to win against Rostov, had a quality first half against Rubin, and possessed a total advantage in the match against CSKA. They struggled against Akhmat's compact defence - that was their worst match.

Bookmakers rightly consider Zenit the favourite. The atmosphere in St. Petersburg is currently better. There are working connections. Plus, Zenit's squad is simply stronger. Gerson, Luis Enrique, Gondu, Glushenkov - players like these can achieve results on their own. Spartak, on the other hand, has Ezequiel Barco in very poor form. The only guarantee of quality in attack is Markinhos. All other players are performing without any hint of stability. Moreover, there is a negative backdrop against Spartak. It seems that even the fans are wishing for the team's failures. An anomalous result is very possible, for example, a crushing defeat for the hosts.