Akron’s captain summed up the results of the past 20 rounds of MELBET First League.

– Let’s go through the chronology of the summer-autumn part. After what round did you already have the conviction that the situation is critical and it will be very difficult to get out?

– As long as the situation can be corrected, the feeling of criticality does not overcome much. We need a good winning streak, then we can get to the top. We see that all teams beat each other. Teams from the bottom of the standings beat the leaders. You can still get closer, the main thing is to believe in it and go from game to game. Go to every match with a winning attitude and win.

– If the failed start of last season can be explained by the high turnover of staff, the lack of teamwork and the outbreak of SARS, then this summer was with other introductory ones. What do you attribute the unsuccessful start of the current draw of the tournament to?

– We went through training camps that lasted more than a month. We had good sparring, where we showed a good game. But by the end of the training camp, our level of readiness dropped a little. I don’t know what to connect it with. We didn’t really get into the season. From game to game were not very confident. Take the same home match against Shinnik, in which we led 2-0 and let go of the game – 2-3. She hit us hard. The game in Tula, where, with the score 1:1, we did not score a penalty. Everything grew like a snowball. Plus, the physical condition was not the best – here I’m talking about myself. The question is whether we can further rectify the situation. The matches played are already in the past, it is already pointless to look at them. The main thing is what happens next.

– At the beginning of the season, second halves played by Akron were the talk of the town. What happened to the team when we lost points after the break?

– Here everything is combined: somewhere they sank physically, there was pressure from the fact that you need to win. Although this should not have been pressured in any way, it was: they wanted to win, to play somewhere to save the score. All this together played a cruel joke with us, and we, unfortunately, failed the second half. Accordingly, the result was not in our favor.

– Maybe the team was not psychologically prepared to solve big problems? Be the favorite?

– It was possible to count 8-10 teams like us before the start, which set the same tasks. All the players who have gathered here want to achieve their goal, but, as time has shown, mistakes were made somewhere. This led to the result we have now. But we still want to rectify this situation and try to climb up.

– Did another long away series in August leave its mark?

– Well, yes, playing on the road, when scoring is important at the beginning of the season, does not add confidence: constant pressure and moving. It is difficult to attribute the bad results to this, but it is one of the factors that also played a role.

– How do you feel about the fact that so far many rivals and experts do not see Akron as a serious competitor and say that teams like Akron must be beaten? Is the recipe for this hat-tossing attitude from the outside – a more stable game over a certain time period?

– This is the problem of those who say so. Maybe it will even be easier for us because of this: they will already go out not fully tuned for the match, and this will play into our hands. To change this, you need to climb up. Yes, we showed a segment of 15 matches with only one defeat, but this is not quite what we expect. We need not only draws, but also victories.

– In August, you expressed confidence that Akron would be at the top at the end of the season and that the team would make every effort to achieve this. Will the remaining segment of the tournament be enough to implement the plan?

– Unfortunately, a secondary factor began to play a role here: how the teams from the top of the standings will behave. If they lose points and we gain, we can catch up to them. If they also continue to confidently score points, as they are doing now, then it will be very difficult to get them. But, first of all, I want to pay attention to our game. The main thing for us is to build on ourselves and win our matches, and then look at the opponent’s misfires.

– How would you assess the degree of adaptation of the team to the new coaching staff based on the results of three months of work?

– Everyone calmly understands and accepts the requirements. But we still need to improve everything, we need fees to bring everything to automatism. So that every football player who enters the football field knows what to do. In principle, the players know this even now, but with some substitutions, sometimes our game developed a little differently. When we pass the training camp, we will have a full picture, and the game will improve even more.

– Can you now say that at this stage this is the strongest Akron you have seen?

– Perhaps I can say that. We have added in terms of confidence, game play, variability. You just need to work on the implementation of scoring chances.

– Against the backdrop of a difficult situation in the championship, did the result in the Russian Cup become some kind of outlet?

– Firstly, there was a great desire of Pavel Anatolyevich to bring the RPL team here. We are pleased that we made it. Secondly, we go out to every game to win, we don’t have secondary matches. Every official game is important, and every unofficial game also bears fruit.

– There are many draw results at the World Cup in Qatar. Recently, we have been playing a lot of matches in a draw. Is Akron in a trend or vice versa?

– There are different teams playing in a draw, but here there is one (smiles). We need to get away from it, score more goals. As we can see, even after scoring three goals, you can draw, which means you need to score four, concede less and add absolutely in every component, which we will do at the training camp.