Preview to the second round of RPL. Corners and cards

Russian Premier League will start again after winter holidays. However, the winter transfer window didn’t take place actively. The most significant transitions are Zhirkov’s and Kokorіn’s transfers from Dynamo to Zenit, as well as Shirokov’s transition from Spartak to CSKA. Also two teams lost their best strikers: Melgarejo moved from Kuban to Spartak and Niasse moved from Lokomotiv to Everton.

To the end of the first part of the season, the league table can be divided into 2 parts - the first eight clubs and the last eight clubs. The difference between the eighth and ninth teams is six points. All teams which are ahead of the league can fight for places in Eurocups in the spring: Terek and Ural will find it more difficult to do, but the other 6 teams haven’t lost their chances. For teams which are in the lower part of the table, the aim is not to drop out of the league.

The quantity of goals scored and missed is known by the majority of fans. We will have a look at how the teams presented themselves in the first part of the league in terms of corner kicks, cards and some other stats.

Let’s start by looking at corners. Among leaders on corners there are clubs which are situated in the top of the league. Out of the first six teams by this indicator, there are five teams who lead in the league table: Zenit, Krasnodar, Spartak, CSKA. Kazan Rubin is also in the group of these top teams, the team was one of the best teams in recent years. Exactly Zenit and Rubin take more than 6 corners per match. If you look at the losers of the championship by corners, we can see that: Ufa, Mordoviya, Kuban and Anzhi take less corner kicks on average. A bit unexpectedly, Rostov are ahead in the league, although they haven’t taken many corner kicks, however, it is because of their unique play style. Anzhi and Terek deliver on average, less than 4 corners per game, so seeing them low in the corners table isn’t surprising.

However, lots of corners don’t guarantee a win on corners in a match. For instance, even though Amkar and Krylya Sovetov have had 11 and 10 wins respectively on corners in 18 matches despite taking on average just 4.44 corners. Zenit is the top team in the league on corners: the team won 15 of 18 matches on corners, the follower up is Krasnodar – the team got 12 wins on corner kicks. The teams with the least number of corner kicks per game were Terek and Anzhi, with only 5 wins each on corners.

The largest amount of corner kicks is taken in matches with the participation of Rubin, Ufa and Dynamo, where on average more than 10 kicks per game are delivered. The least quantity of corners (on average less than 9 per game) are seen in matches in which Rostov, Lokomotiv and Amkar played.

Moving on from corners to cards - the rudest teams in current season are Amkar, Rostov and Terek. Their players got on average 2.5 yellow cards during each match. The most peaceful team is Samara’s Krylya Sovetov, whose players got on average less than 1.5 yellow cards. The highest number of yellow cards was shown in matches in which Rubin, Anzhi and Rostow played, at approximately 4.5 cards per match and the lowest yellow cards number was in Krylya Sovetov’s matches.

Let’s change from yellow to red cards: Rubin’s players got the most cards (4 cards for 18 matches). Spartak’s players, however, didn’t get any red cards. Mostly, red cards are shown in Moscow Dynamo matches: three Muscovites and three of their rivals were sent off. Only one Krylya Sovetov’s player was sent off during 18 games.

The quantity of cards depends not only on players’ behaviour, but also on the referee’s decision. The strictest referee in the first circle of the league was S. Karasev. He has shown 44 yellow cards (4.89 yellow cards on average), 6 red cards and has appointed 5 penalties in 9 matches.