Igor Cherevchenko: “We planned to employ counter-attacking tactics, but failed”

After the final whistle confirmed Lokomotiv’s loss to CSKA 0:1, the Railwaymen’s acting head coach Igor Cherevchenko told the post-match press conference the team failed to reach their goals.

- It’s hard to comment on the game, - said Cherevchenko. – The debut was unsuccessful. What’s more, we knew what to expect from CSKA and worked on it but still failed. We knew they would counter-attack but kept losing the ball and allowing the opponents to create chances. It’s football.

- Did you discuss with the management the possibility of a legal promotion to a head coach?
- Yes, we did.

- What did you want to do in today’s game?
- We wanted to win. We wanted to control the ball in midfield – and that’s where we failed. We planned to employ counter-attacking tactics but didn’t succeed.

- For the first time ever did Aleksey Miranchuk and Manuel Fernandes play together in midfield. Do you think the experiment was successful, and how probable is that they will play together in the future?
- It wasn’t an experiment, we had tried this scheme before. But the game proved that it doesn’t work, and we’ll give it up.