I spoke much last week about archetypal Europa League teams and Zenit focused quite heavily ..............

Zenit won this in 2008 and old GOWI followers will doubtless recall we were on them at big odds (20-1), they have played in Champions League for the last five seasons, making it past the group stage in three and they are hugely experienced now in european terms. They have a new head coach in Mircea Lucescu, who led Shakhtar to their win in this competition. He had 12 seasons in charge there, was 8 times COTY and also took them to the last four 12 months ago and he will be hungry to hit the ground running at Zenit, currently second domestically, they have some ground to make up on leaders Spartak, but do not need to worry about that for now and it will be this competition you feel the veteran coach will be judged upon. Zenit were eliminated at R16 stage by a very good Benfica side in the CL at the same time last year, in 14/15 they swept aside PSV in this round of 32, so can come out firing after the break and were unfortunate to run into eventual champions Sevilla in the last 8. They led in Spain in the first leg for 45 minutes before losing 2-1, they turned the tie around in the return and were 5 minutes away from extra time when conceding, they enjoyed 64% possession, had 24 attempts on goal in that game and for once the stats did not lie and they laid siege to the Sevilla goal. I doubt anyone else would have stopped them that year and they are overdue another very deep run.
 

It is many years since Anderlecht have made the last 8 of a european competition, despite competing every season, you have to feel the domestic title is their priority this time ,having not won in two seasons, they completed a hat trick prior to that and have not failed to win in three campaigns since 1999. Today they are without injured Kara Mbodji and Dennis Appiah, who it is said will return for the weekend league game, which might tell us something about priorities, or Adrien Trebel who is ineligible. The absence of Kara and Appiah leaves them significantly weakened on the right side of that backline and having not kept a clean sheet in six group games anyway, it is easy to see a goal or two in this for Zenit. Anderlecht have conceded 4 goals in four in Europe when Kara plays, eight goals in four when he is sidelined (including their two losses).

 

The 2-0 loss and failure to score in Belgium was hugely disappointing and it will be tough to progress from this position, Zenit had a couple of chances, but the result was deserved, despite Anderlecht making seven changes from the last league game. What we do know is that things will be a little more difficult for the Belgian side tonight in St Petersburg, with heavy snow falling during the day, sub zero temperatures with a real feel of -11 when they wake up this morning, Zenit will certainly not be willing to give up on this just yet and will strip fitter after the 90 competitive minutes last week, when they saw a lot of the ball for a visiting team (67%) and with the away side still short handed tonight (missing four starters) we can again expect a rotated line up and this time, for Zenit to be able to make more of that possession which should be well over 70% this evening.  I expect the hosts to win and hope it will be enough to progress, either way, Zenit are 12-1-0 at home in the Europa League and best value is IMO..............