Form Guide: Are table topping Zenit back where they belong under Lucescu?

The summer wasn’t easy for Zenit St Petersburg. They knew in advance that Andre Villas-Boas was leaving, sure, but his departure still provided the club with a problem to solve. Over the course of the summer, Zenit also lost their best player, as Hulk headed out to China in return for oodles of money.  

The club, then, geared up for the new season needing a new head coach and a new talisman, with each year also bringing the painful reminder that the planned Krestovsky Stadium is yet to be finished. The original date for completion was 2008. 10 years later, it still hasn’t been built. On the face of it, Zenit appeared edging towards crisis.  

But as the winter chills begin to whip in from the Ural Mountains, Zenit look remarkably stable. They’ve been aided, in no small way, by the appointment of Mircea Lucescu from Shakhtar Donetsk. The Romanian coach has had a formidable career, taking in spells with Inter Milan, Besiktas and Galatasaray as well as Shakhtar, where he won eight league titles, seven Ukrainian cups and the Europa League. For a club with the mid-ranking European standing of Zenit, there was no better option.  

Manuel Pellegrini had been touted around the Russian press but as soon as it became clear that Lucescu was available, Zenit moved quickly. 12 years in Eastern Ukraine has given him a fluent command of Russian, providing a vital asset in a football culture that often bridles at incomes not being able to grasp the language. Lucescu, for reasons unknown, conducts post-match interviews with the aid of a translator, despite there being plenty of online evidence of his Russian ability.  

After instilling a generation of trophy wins at Shakhtar, Lucescu begin his time at Zenit in similar fashion, winning the Russian Super Cup against champions CSKA Moscow. But things did not begin so well in the league, with three draws in the first four games suggesting that it would take time for Zenit to adapt to a new head coach with a new way of playing. As Spartak continued to dominate teams, despite having their own strange managerial merry-go-round, Zenit faltered, failing to even score in their first two Russian Premier League games.  

Yet things began to click around the end of August, as the season was about to enter it’s third month. A 3-0 win over Amkar Perm acted as the catalyst for the club’s ascent to the top of the table, joining Spartak on 25 points from 11 games. Since that dominant win over Amkar, Zenit haven’t looked back, scoring 34 goals in the last 10 games in all competitions. Any lingering doubts have been blasted away.  

While Lucescu has expertly stepped in to fill the head coach’s role, Zenit have also moved on from Hulk. The Brazilian was Zenit’s and the Russian Premier League’s best player in recent seasons and his departure has precipitated a sharing of the responsibility at Zenit. Artyem Dzyuba has continued to weigh in with goals and important performances, while a combination of Robert Mak, Aleksandr Kokorin and Oleg Shatov have each taken up Hulk’s position on the right wing at various stages of the season.  

More than just their best player, though, Hulk was a symbol of everything Zenit like to think about themselves as a club: upwardly mobile, making an impact on the European stage and capable of attracting players that could, realistically, feature for some of the continent's more storied clubs. Yet Hulk’s departure has allowed another Brazilian to rise to prominence, as Giuliano has begun to make his mark.  

Largely unknown among Zenit fans before the move, Giuliano has nine goals and eight assists in his 12 games so far this season, easily inserting himself into the centre WhoScored’s team of the season so far with a rating of 7.52. The fans may have been unaware of his talent before, but Lucescu has long been an admirer, first trying to sign Guiliano in 2011 but missing out to Juande Ramos’ Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. Yet this time, Lucescu has his man and the relationship is flourishing.  

Thanks to a combination of Lucescu and Giuliano, then, the summer’s woes have given way to optimism at Zenit St Petersburg. The third problem, that of the stadium, is yet to be resolved but the structure of the Krestovsky is now visible on the St Petersburg skyline, even if the structure is not yet ready to accommodate the club. Just months after finishing an embarrassing third in the league, seeing their manager depart and their best player leave, Zenit are back to where they feel they belong: the top of the table.

Will Zenit secure domestic glory this season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below