Tambiev: no excuses after Dynamo's loss to Traktor

Leonid Tambiev did not look for excuses after Dynamo's 1:2 loss to Traktor in overtime.

The coach was asked about a mid-game change to his forward lines, when Vitali Letunov and Nikita Sharakanov were split up and Sharakanov moved to a different unit. He said the reshuffle was meant to give that line more life and force Sharakanov's new partners to battle for the puck and create scoring chances. The alternative, he said, would have been to sit the whole unit down.

Pressed on whether he can find the right partners for Nikita Korostelev, Tambiev turned the question back: with this group of players, what partners could he possibly offer him. On changing the foreign-import combinations, his answer was shorter still — the staff will think about it.

The sharper part of the conversation came over finishing. Dynamo have outplayed opponents in stretches through the season but have scored only 21 goals in 11 games. Tambiev said creating a chance is not the same as scoring one, that shots need to go into the corners of the net rather than into the goalkeeper's pads, and that conversion is a matter of skill he cannot supply from the bench. He added that he would rather see his forwards generating chances than not, since a lack of chances would worry him more, and said the coaching staff reviews video from seven in the morning looking for answers.

Dynamo lifted their level only after conceding, by his own account, having drifted through the first 42 minutes of the match.

If the finishing does not improve, the pattern from Sunday's game — territorial control without the goals to match — is likely to keep costing Dynamo points in the standings.