Nikolic: We dropped two points today

Lokomotiv’s head coach Marco Nikolic reflects on the game against Sochi (0-0) in Gameweek 26 of the Russian Premier League.

- Unfortunately, we dropped two points today. It is clear that opponents that come here, play very compact and defensive. I believe we had 80% of possession in the second half. We lack sharpness and efficiency in the final stages of attacks, we do not use many chances. We need to be more hungry for the wins and goals, try to play more efficiently. What’s good is that we did not have any problems in front of our goal today. But it is obvious that we need to do better offensively, when playing against low block teams. In Russian Premier League one goal can decide everything. You need to use your moments.

- Do you have questions about refereeing?

- I said long time ago that I do not support VAR. This is my personal opinion, but I feel that those pauses in the game kill the soul of football. I can’t comment on the decisions of the referees. They had time to review and evaluate offside episodes.

- Do you still think about winning the league or is it time to congratulate Zenit?

- I don’t think it’s possible anymore. Now we are fighting for the second place, this is our main objective.

- Why Lokomotiv don’t throw everyone in attack and use long ball strategy at the end of the games? Your team should use difference in class, as advantage to win games.

- We scored the goal in the last minutes of the game against Krylia, scored another last minute goal today and did not convert the penalty. But I want to emphasize that we should not focus on the goals scored on the 90th minute. We need to open up the game at the beginning, score early and control the game until the end. We do not use our chances. And when you play against a very defensive team, there would not be many chances. That’s why we must use our moments.

- Do you have an understanding when the injured players will return? Are going to use rotation?

- Perhaps this is not exactly the rotation I would like. We are in the decisive stage of the championship, and now the primary question is about the result. Today everyone who is available played. Barinov, Rybus and Guilherme were not ready for today’s game, Magkeev was not fully fit, Ignatjev was suspended. Eder got injured during the game and was replaced by Suleymanov. I am confident that Guilherme, Magkeev and Rybus will be ready for Spartak. Barinov will probably play as well. With Eder, we need to see what happened.