Spartak remain unbeaten with victory over Anzhi

MoScow: Ten-man Spartak Moscow maintained their unbeaten start to the Russian Premier League season with a 2-0 win at Anzhi Makhachkala.

Georgian international Jano Ananidze and Dutchman Quincy Promes scored the goals in Sunday’s match to leave Spartak top, two points ahead of city rivals CSKA, who beat Tomsk 1-0 on Saturday.

Spartak took lead after 18 minutes when Cape Verde striker Ze Luis back-heeled to Ananidze on the edge of the area and he placed his shot inside the left corner to score.

Promes had a chance to double the visitors’ lead just before the break but his close-range shot hit the woodwork and bounced back into play.

In the 72nd minute Spartak were reduced to 10 men when their winger Andrei Yeshchenko received a second yellow card.

But Promes added the second goal with nine minutes to go, firing the ball in from the edge of the sixyard box to secure Spartak’s well-deserved win.

Elsewhere, Terek Grozny battled back from a goal down to beat last season’s runners-up Rostov 2-1 and go third.

Terek were trailing 1-0 after their skipper Rizvan Utsiev scored an own-goal in the 31st minute.

However, Albanian forward Bekim Balaj equalised and Venezuelan Wilker Angel got the winner before Rostov had skipper Alexandru Gatcan sent off for a second bookable offence with 20 minutes remaining.