Spartak keep Karpin happy
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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Injury to Welliton aside, Valeri Karpin had plenty to be happy about as FC Spartak Moskva won for the second Group F match in succession, 3-0 at home to Slovakian champions MŠK Žilina.
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A hamstring injury to Welliton was the only disappointment for FC Spartak Moskva coach Valeri Karpin as his side collected their second straight victory in UEFA Champions League Group F, 3-0 against Slovakian debutants MŠK Žilina. Ari scored twice and substitute Ibson once to leave Karpin purring "we could have had more".
Valeri Karpin, Spartak coach
The only blot is Welliton's injury. He pulled his hamstring and is out for three weeks at least. When we made it 3-0 we felt comfortable but it was quite tough before the first goal and it became even tougher after we scored it. Žilina's substitution in the second half [when striker Momodou Ceesay came on for Mário Pečalka] put us on the back foot, but we took control, kept the ball, scored three times and could have had more.
Ceesay is very, very tall and he caused us a bit of trouble, but [Aleksandr] Sheshukov took care of him. We chose to play with two strikers because we were at home and we needed a win. Ibson also has a slight injury, so we decided to go with two forwards instead. I did think a lot about the lineup, because we never really played like this before.
Pavel Hapal, Žilina coach
It is sad to lose by a scoreline like that, but our opponents were very strong. If we want to collect any points in our next few games we need to take at least one out of the three or four chances we get. Spartak's attack was so quick we simply could not catch up. We respected our opponents too much and lacked courage. We tried to base our game on defence, but you can see that that didn't earn us any points so we will try again to play attacking football.
