Goals by Smolov, Sebastian and Fomin bring Dynamo comfortable win over Khimki

Dynamo missed Guillermo Varela, Clinton N’Jie and Ivan Ordets on the eve of the fixture against Khimki. Therefore, Roman Yevgenyev formed a centre-back duo with Fabián Balbuena, while Fedor Smolov appeared on the edge of the attack. New Khimki manager Sergey Yuran included five newcomers into the starting lineup at once. Yury Zhirkov and Pavel Mamayev were among them.

The White-Blues took the initiative from the first minutes. However, the hosts didn’t sit back and tried to threaten with fast counterattacks during which Didier Lamkel Zé played the first fiddle. The Cameroonian showed good dribbling skills and determination racing into the visitors’ penalty area. In one of the episodes Moro made a brilliant tackle stopping Zé’s attempt.  

Dynamo players slightly succeeded in corner kick taking, when Balbuena jumped above all and Lantratov was forced to save the teammates with his fingertips.

In the 35th minute, the White-Blues opened the scoring. Sebastian Szymanski managed to squeeze possession under pressure to Smolov who teased half the Khimki defence and struck precisely into the bottom-corner through a sea of legs. At the end of the half, Dynamo took a men advantage: Philip Dagerstål challenged on Szymanski and received a well-deserved red card.

After the interval, Kirill Levnikov evened out the line-ups, when Roman Yevgenyev was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Lamkel Zé. Schwarz reacted immediately replacing Arsen Zakharyan for a centre-back Saba Sazonov.

In the 67th minute, Khimki were left with nine men after Nicholas’ attack on Moro. The White-Blues spent the remaining time in numerous attacks, in which Konstantin Tyukavin showed himself brilliantly.

By the end of the game, Dynamo teenage star made an assist to Szymanski who clearly hit the right corner. The goal by Fomin brought the visitors to a blowout victory. The Russian international capitalized on Yaroslav Gladyshev’s pass and curled the ball into the top corner.

Dynamo earned 39 points and took the first place in the table at least until Monday, when Zenit will face Rubin Kazan. In the next round, the White-Blues will play against Spartak in a derby on March 6. Before that fixture, the Muscovites will test Nizhny Novgorod in the Russian Cup round of 16 on March 1.