Football manager Dmitry Selyuk offered his assessment of Rostov’s recent run of results following a string of disappointing performances in the closing stretch of the Russian Premier League season.
On May 21, Valery Karpin’s squad were overwhelmed by Krasnodar with a 0:3 setback during the 28th round of the league campaign.
The analysis pointed to a team that no longer holds a guaranteed place in the standings. Rostov appears unlikely to clinch second place, and there are serious questions about whether they should even be aiming for a top four finish. The squad has been described as an empty vessel by some observers, yet they rose to a high position largely due to refereeing decisions that went in their favor on several occasions, including a total of 17 penalties awarded in their favor. The commentary suggested that those penalties did not translate into sustained wins or momentum, challenging the idea that Rostov deserved such a high rung in the table.
There have been three matches in which the team failed to score, representing three consecutive losses. In these fixtures the club did not capitalize on the opportunities created by penalties, a point underscoring the fragile balance between luck and performance. Critics argued that Rostov’s second-place finish did not reflect merit accumulated on the field, and the overall form did not justify that standing.
In the last eight games, Rostov managed only a single victory while suffering three straight defeats. Heading into the final two rounds of the season, the team had slipped to fourth place with 50 points. Spartak Moscow sat on 53 points in third, and CSKA stood at 54, occupying the coveted second position. The narrowing gap and the late-season slide marked a turbulent period for Rostov as they approached the end of the campaign.
Looking ahead, Karpin’s side were scheduled to face Akhmat Grozny and CSKA in the remaining rounds, a fixture list that would test the squad’s resilience and potential ability to salvage a higher finish or to close the season with some positive performances despite the numerical deficit in the standings.
Gadzhi Gadzhiev, a former Russian football coach, also weighed in on Rostov’s recent run, declaring that the club’s sequence of results in the closing games represented a failure for the team. The perspective from Gadzhiev reflected a broader critique within a segment of the coaching community regarding whether Rostov had managed to maintain pressure and consistency when the stakes were highest, and whether organizational or tactical factors had contributed to the downturn.