Never go back, they say, but Yuri Semin has never been somebody to place too much store by conventional wisdom. He is 71 now, his eyes more watery than ever, and this is his fourth stint in charge of Lokomotiv Moscow. In total, he’s managed them for more than two decades. To a large extent, Semin is the club and that they are playing Schalke in the Champions League on Wednesday is to a large degree down to him.

Semin first became manager of Lokomotiv in 1986. He had a year away in 1991, managing New Zealand’s Olympic team – a typically unconventional move for a coach who manages to combine supreme practicality and the dress sense of a maverick 70s TV cop with the sense that he spends half his life gazing into another realm – before returning for 15 more years at Lokomotiv.

First he saved them from bankruptcy, buying shares that he still owns, and then he made them a regular top six club. In 1996, he led Lokomotiv to the Russian Cup, their first trophy since winning the Soviet Cup 39 years earlier. They won it again the following year, and again in 2000 and 2001. And then, in 2002, Semin ended Spartak’s long hegemony and won the league for the first time in the club’s history. Two years later, they won it again.

Semin finally left for the Russia national job in 2005 but two years later he was back at Lokomotiv, this time as president, only to be sacked after a poor season. He went to Ukraine and won the league with Dynamo Kyiv, but returned against to Lokomotiv in 2009. Again, though, disappointing form led to him being dismissed.

All reason said he shouldn’t return again in 2016, but he did. Lok signed just one player for a fee that summer and made a net profit of £12m on transfers. They are not a rich club. The following season their net spend was £2.5m. In 2017-18 it was £3m. And yet, for the third time in their history, each of them under Semin, they won the league.

It was a barely conceivable success. Theirs was not, in any sense, a team of stars. They had Eder, the former Swansea City striker who scored the winner in the Euro 2016 final; the veteran Peruvian winger Jefferson Farfán; and Ari, the Brazilian forward who won a Dutch title under Louis van Gaal at AZ; but their key player was the captain, Igor Denisov, his performances an indication of what Semin does best.

Lokomotiv have started the season poorly, losing to Galatasaray in the Champions League and falling behind in the league. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

Denisov is 34 now, his career a catalogue of fresh starts gone sour. A decade ago, when he excelled at Euro 2008, he seemed one of the brightest holding midfielders in Europe. But his personality keeps getting in the way.

Denisov is difficult. He broke the nose of a driving instructor after a learner under tuition almost crashed into his SUV. He left Zenit after a string of controversies. He scrapped with a coach when a refereeing decision in a training game went against him, then kicked the ball at the Spartak bench during a league game, sparking a mass brawl, and was finally offloaded after effectively going on strike in protest at the wages being paid to two new signings, Hulk and Axel Witsel. He was kicked out of Anzhi after falling out with Samuel Eto’o. At Dinamo he was twice suspended, once for a row with the coach, Stanislav Cherchesov, and once for a row with the team doctor. When Fabio Capello was Russia national manager, the Italian also gave up on him.

But Denisov is, beyond all that, a good footballer and since Semin signed him, he has been committed and controversy-free. His tears after the championship was sealed against Zenit last May were one of the great images of the season.

But Denisov’s form, and that of Lok, have fallen off this season. It may simply be his age combined with a regression to the mean from a squad that played above themselves last season. But there is also talk that he has been distracted after a hoped-for return to Zenit – his wife and four children still live in St Petersburg – failed to materialise in the summer.

And with Champions League qualification has come spending. Fedor Smolov and Benedikt Höwedes were signed for a total of around £11.5m, while Grzegorz Krychowiak was picked up on loan from Paris Saint-Germain. Some of the balance and the camaraderie of last season, perhaps, has gone. Denisov has reacted badly before against outsiders arriving to disrupt a unit in which he felt comfortable.

Whatever the reason, some of the magic has gone. Although they beat Akhmat 2-0 at the weekend, with just nine games of the season gone, Lok are already 10 points behind Zenit in the table, while their Champions League campaign began with a 3-0 defeat at Galatasaray. Realistically they need a result against Schalke on Wednesday to keep hopes of progress alive. But even if the light is dimming on Semin’s fourth coming at Lok (sixth, if you include his stints as a player and president), this has been a remarkable final act.