Sardar Azmoun @ Zenit St. Petersburg | 2020-21

[inarsenewetrust]

He clearly an excellent player but all his highlights only show him shooting or dribbling. For a midfielder, he doesn't seem to pass much which may not benefit Sardar.

7 goals 7 assists last season for a weak betis team who finished 15th.

54 goals and 34 assists before that for lyon.

His ability to attract defenders, break lines, shoot from outside, and his general technical level is classes above what zenit are currently are dealing with, where a couple physical and competent CBs can take away much of azmoun-dzyuba potency and a half decent manager will double team malcom when he gets the ball and suddenly zenit have no offensive game plan but a series of aimless crosses.

[Armando]

7 goals 7 assists last season for a weak betis team who finished 15th.

54 goals and 34 assists before that for lyon.

His ability to attract defenders, break lines, shoot from outside, and his general technical level is classes above what zenit are currently are dealing with, where a couple physical and competent CBs can take away much of azmoun-dzyuba potency and a half decent manager will double team malcom when he gets the ball and suddenly zenit have no offensive game plan but a series of aimless crosses.

I hadn't checked those impressive statistics, so thank you. His quality will hopefully attract defenders and leave Azmun with more room/time to score.

[diz]

Sardar being the joker that he is

https://twitter.com/zenit_spb/status...52180008833025

[Galactika]

Bruh Dzyuba won't be dropped off the team. He's the target man, the one who holds on to the ball and provides Azmoun with goal scoring chances. I don't see Zenit suddenly changing their tactics even if they were bringing in Dybala.

[teammelli91]

zamane ma footbalistha taxi mirondan !

Exactly! If our youngsters listen to interviews with Ali Parvin or Hassan Rowshan (for example), they’ll hear them talk about how much different footballers had it back then compared to now.

[KasraKhan]

Sardar is starting vs Arsenal Tula! The match will start shortly.

[FF187]

Ivanovic to West Brom... big loss for Zenit from my perspective!

Gesendet von meinem SM-G973F mit Tapatalk

[inarsenewetrust]

Ivanovic to West Brom... big loss for Zenit from my perspective!

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was replaced with lovren 2 months ago.

[BacheLot]

zenit up 2-0 in Ht
Sardar with breakaway and preAssist to 2nd goal

[FF187]

was replaced with lovren 2 months ago.

Excellent!

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[inarsenewetrust]

decent first half by zenit. We know they always struggle vs low blocks like Arsenals today but early goal helped with that.

Again, the academy graduate left back, #4, Krugovoy has been really good. He looks to be a potential game changer with his speed, dribbling ability, shooting from outside box. His drive from deep and shot caused the first goal. I really like his overall play and physical abilities too.

Malcom, Azmoun, Dzyuba trident looking solid. Dzyuba a bit slow here and there with turnovers but well taken goal. Sardar has been solid and started the move for dzyubas goal, smart cut back to malcom. He is working very hard tracking down counter attacks and applying pressure so from that standpoint we can say he has recovered physically. and mentally in this two weeks break he had. Before that zenit played a match every 3 days for the past 3 months, with only a 1 week summer break.

Hopefully sardar bags a couple in the second half.

[Medzdidz]

I may get some negative replies here but I have watched Zenit nearly every game since Sardar moved there , he is such a talented player and become a great team player , his work rate is something else. However he makes these great runs, gets in a good position in the box, goes for the one two but he doesn’t receive the ball.

Yes Zenit are winning games but they are far and away the best team in Russia and should be winning most games. He has surpassed this team and I am so bloody annoyed that (from what we know) he hasn’t had offers from big teams in the top four leagues because that is his standard.

Now If he stays at Zenit then ok, he is playing on the biggest stage again with the Champions League but he has shown now in two campaigns that he can perform on the stage.

[inarsenewetrust]

I may get some negative replies here but I have watched Zenit nearly every game since Sardar moved there , he is such a talented player and become a great team player , his work rate is something else. However he makes these great runs, gets in a good position in the box, goes for the one two but he doesn’t receive the ball.
Yes Zenit are winning games but they are far and away the best team in Russia and should be winning most games. He has surpassed this team and I am so bloody annoyed that (from what we know) he hasn’t had offers from big teams in the top four leagues because that is his standard.
Now If he stays at Zenit then ok, he is playing on the biggest stage again with the Champions League but he has shown now in two campaigns that he can perform on the stage.

I think we should be patient. ITs not like he is being ignored as we saw with legit napoli interest confirmed by their president. I think a lot of teams are looking at him and appreciate his profile (like Ragnick at leipzig as well). But there are some financial realities that come into account. When you are dealing with Zenit you often have to pay their asking price and there is no room for negotiation bc technically speaking they are never in a financial position where they are looking to sell a key player. Now eventually, sardar's 2+ years of excellent form (2nd top scorer two seasons ago + EL performances, top scorer last season + Cl performances, and continuation of that league form this season coupled with hopefully even better CL performances) will be enough for some team to just pay the asking price.

What is important to me is that he is still IMPROVING in this zenit team as we see with stuff like his 1v1 finishing, longer range shooting, fitness, physical stature. If zenit add a CAM which they seem like they know they have to do as well it can help a lot in terms of better directing their offensive moves.

[freak]

Here is a plot I put together that illustrates the cumulative expected vs actual goals scored in the Russian Premier League last season. For those who are unfamiliar with the metric, expected goals (xG) is a measure of the extent of a player's goal-scoring performance given a number of factors such as difficulty of the chance, angle of the shot, etc.

Both of Zenit's forwards are banging in goals at the expected rate, which is a big reason why they won the title. There are a few other important factors that I've tried to highlight using annotations. Sorry about the poor quality of the image, I'm limited to 800x600 uploads unless someone knows of another way I can post a high-res version.

rfpl_2019_xG_goals.png

[Medzdidz]

I understand that, as you said with Zenit you have to pay the price as they have big financial backing and I can not argue at all against the move to Zenit and it was definitely the best choice (especially over the move to Wolves that nearly happened). As you say he has become a better player there.

I just get frustrated when I watch him play because I can see the run he is making not being picked up or the cross not being of a good standard. If Zenit can buy some more quality then yes he should stay for longer but that is an ‘if’ and not a definite.