Former president of the "Lokomotiv" club Nikolay Naumov shared his thoughts on the news from St. Petersburg's "Zenit" club in an exclusive interview with the publication "Evro-Futbol.Ru". This was reported by Euro-football.ru.
According to him, "Zenit" recently invited star player Jerson to the team. Coach Sergey Semak stated that this player will play an important role for the team.
In Naumov's opinion, Jerson will greatly help strengthen the midfield, especially since Douglas Santos is currently not in his position. Jerson will be a central player in building "Zenit's" main game.
Additionally, the situation regarding Wendell remains unclear. Naumov criticized Wendell for not yet joining the team and not signing a contract with "Botafogo".
He emphasized that such indiscipline would negatively affect the team. There must be discipline in the team, and serious measures should be taken against delays.
Wendell's repeated occurrences of such situations every year are also negatively impacting other Brazilian players. They express dissatisfaction, which leads to problems within the team.
Naumov demanded that Semak fight against such situations. He also spoke about Aleksandr Sobolev.
Many Russian players fail at "Zenit" and are later transferred to other teams. Sobolev may face a similar fate.
The issue of whether to give Sobolev a chance or loan him to "Orenburg" was discussed. According to Naumov, it is difficult to give Sobolev a chance because the team has strong legionnaires like Matteo Kassierra and Lutsiano Gonda.
Therefore, Sobolev will spend more time coming off the bench. There was also talk about Nino, and the possibility of him leaving the team for family reasons was considered.
Naumov rated him as a mid-level defender, emphasizing that this would be a loss for the team. It was noted that there are problems in the defense line, and other players are not always in good condition.
For this reason, the need to strengthen the defense line was highlighted. Finally, Ilya Samoshnikov was mentioned.
It is said that he may be bought by the "Spartak" team. In Naumov's opinion, Samoshnikov is a strong defender, but it is difficult to give him a chance at "Zenit" because there are other players of a similar level in the team.
He may also be assigned a backup role. Thus, Russian players often do not fully showcase their potential at "Zenit", and the likelihood of this situation recurring is high.
