Lokomotiv steam ahead in Russia as Atletico loom
MOSCOW: Lokomotiv Moscow maintained their Russian league lead with a 2-0 win at Ural Yekaterinburg on Monday boosting their morale ahead of Thursday's Europa League last 16 round return-leg match with Atletico Madrid.
With that win the railway-backed side restored their eightpoint advantage at the top of the Premier League ahead of city rivals Spartak and CSKA, who beat strugglers SKA Khabarovsk 1-0 and Akhmat Grozny 3-0 respectively on Sunday.
"I'm very pleased as we've got three points, while my team showed strong character today," Lokomotiv manager Yury Semin said.
"We've performed quality football despite the cold weather and uneven pitch which caused troubles for both teams.
Semin's thoughts switched to Thursday's task when they host Atletico Madrid in the Europa League Last-16 with Antoine Griezmann and Diego Costa gunning to add to the 3-0 deficit from last week.
"Now we need to have some rest to prepare for the meeting with Atletico in the proper way. Though we only have slim chances of getting through we're ready to do our best in front of our home crowd on Thursday."
Ural, who failed to chalk up a win in their seven previous league games, started in a lively fashion seeking an early opener and forcing Lokomotiv goalie Anton Kochenkov to perform a couple of saves early on.
But Lokomotiv soon took the initiative back and in the 11th minute their midfielder Anton Miranchuk fired home a rebound from the edge of the area after Ural 'keeper Yaroslav Godzyur parried his twin brother Alexei's initial angled shot.
Portuguese midfielder Manuel Fernandes added his goal with a precise spot-kick just four minutes later after Eder was fouled in the box.
After the interval the hosts poured forwards in attack in an attempt to reduce the arrears but to no avail as Lokomotiv defended well replying on rare but dangerous counter-attacks and kept their lead to extend their unbeaten series to nine league matches.