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Nobody expected Lokomotiv to win the title after last year’s failure. Next season, this team will play in the Champions League for the first time in 14 years. We asked Sports.ru and Match TV tactics expert Vadim Lukomski to explain how Semin’s team play and what to expect from it?

RFN: If we look at the quality of their game, can we say Lokomotiv’s title is deserved?

You can’t say that it is massively undeserved. Perhaps Spartak played better football for the most of the season. Massimo Carrera’s team was very unlucky at the beginning of the campaign. The points they lost in the summer cost them the title. However, they didn’t really play badly in those matches. They just didn’t convert their chances.

Lokomotiv’s title win can be compared to Chelsea’s last season triumph. I see at least 4 similarities:

1) Both teams underperformed heavily the season before they won the title. Chelsea finished 10th in 2015/16, while Lokomotiv finished 8th in 2016/17. In both cases it was evident that it wasn’t the real level of the squad. Just a season when everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.

2) Both teams played more defensive football than their rivals. Chelsea were 6th in possession stats (below Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal and Man Utd), Loko were 5th (below Krasnodar, Zenit, Spartak and CSKA). Not only was their football more defensive, but also their tactics were simpler.

3) Both teams gained momentum and points advantage during first part of the season. In both cases it was enough to let them play their favored style and win a title.

4) Both teams weren’t as good as their points tally suggested. Nerds may point to xP stats. Man City and Spartak had more quality chances, but didn’t convert them into points.

Was Chelsea’s title undeserved? You rarely see people say so. Seasons when a team plays the best football, has the best style of play, dominate every possible stat and breaks every possible record, are extremely rare (unless this team is coached by Pep Guardiola). So there is always a way to speculate on whether team really deserved it.

In truth, nobody really wants to speculate on Lokomotiv’s triumph. Even rivals see their title win as a fairytale. The clubs’ icon Yuri Semin returned to the club and surprisingly proved that he can still do it at the age of 70. It is a cool story. Semin is well-respected, so nobody wants to ruin his moment.

Loko were among the best in terms of quality of football, they were helped by some luck and surprisingly spot on decisions by Semin. Okay, his choices weren’t always driven by logic. For example, Semin confessed that he subbed on Eder, who scored title-winning goal against Zenit, just because he had remembered his goal in the Euro 2016 final.

In the end, the story is too good to waste any time arguing if it is deserved or not. Without a shadow of a doubt Loko will be remembered as deserved champions and probably, they are.

How does Semin’s team play (in attack, in defense, when they lose the ball)? Which team from the Western leagues can you compare it to?

One fact illustrates Loko style perfectly. They scored only 15 goals in 15 home fixtures (I challenge you to find another champion with 1 goal per game scoring ratio at home). Only 10 goals were scored from open play – the 5th worst in the RFPL. Away from home things are very different, with 26 goals, which was the best in the league.

These simple stats tell you all you need to know. Lokomotiv are a solid defensive side. They are dangerous when opponents give them space to counterattack. They are pretty average when they face a defensive unit.

Loko usually stick to a 4-2-3-1 formation. They are ‘a broken team’, which consists of 6 defensive players and 4 attackers. The defensive players are very restricted unless Loko have to score. The attacking four have a lot of freedom. They play very close to each other and improvise to create Loko’s best bits of play.

None of the four attackers are a winger. They prefer to play centrally and each of them can pass well. Portugal international Manuel Fernandes is considered to be the most gifted of them all. He scored 7 and assisted 4. Many fans see him as the team’s best player. He is certainly the brightest spark, but probably not the most important one. Alexey Miranchuk is the one who really makes attack tick. He constantly makes right simple choices in final third. His intelligent decision making is one of the few positives in Loko’s positional attacks.

Off the ball Loko rarely press high. They are happy to concede space and counter. Loko’s defensive organisation is really good. They also prefer to have a lot of men behind the ball in transition, so they don’t have to counterpress. It’s easy for them to do so, because, as highlighted above, they often attack with only 4-5 players.

The ideal scenario for Semin’s team is playing against an opponent who wants the ball but are not particularly effective in using it. It explains their form against the top sides. They collected 14 points from 6 matches against CSKA, Spartak and Zenit. They had less possession in all those games and were outshot on 5 of these occasions.

Of course, Loko are very good at set pieces. They scored 12 (the 2nd best result) and conceded 3 goals (also the 2nd best) from free kicks and corners.

You can’t really compare Loko to any European top side. Crystal Palace is a good shout. They are pretty close in terms of style. They sometimes played 4-4-2 with Zaha and Townsend upfront and wingers with freedom to come centrally. Counterattacks and set plays are their strong points. They even have a manager in his 70s who came back and surprised everyone.

Will this football allow Lokomotiv to avoid failing in the Champions League, and if not, then what needs to be corrected?

I see three major concerns.

1) The Defensive midfielders (usually Denisov and Tarasov) still don’t have perfect a understanding. They don’t talk enough. Moments when one of them decides to press without proper support is so common. Russian teams play too slowly to expose it. Champions League sides won’t be so forgiving.

2) Manuel Fernandes is a key attacking player. However, he is also one of the laziest defensive players I have ever seen. Again RFPL sides aren’t good enough to expose it. Yet Atletico were and did it in Europa League fixtures well. Expect more of the same in Champions league.

3) Amazingly Loko play defensive football, but use Maciej Rybus (former forward) and Vladislav Ignatjev (former winger) as fullbacks. They are rarely exposed in the RFPL. Mainly due to the lack of high-quality dribblers. Dribbles per game ratio in the Russian league is lower than in Sweden or the MLS. However, top teams may expose Rybus and Ignatjev in 1-on-1 situations.

Finally, Lokomotiv are the team with the highest average age in RFPL. Some players may regress. Every position, except GK, CB and the Miranchuk brothers may be improved upon. At the same time, it’s not entirely necessary to replace Igor Denisov, Manu Fernandes or Jefferson Farfan, all of whom played major part in the title success. The club will have to make difficult choices this summer.

That said, even in a worst case scenario I don’t expect them to fail miserably in CL. They are pretty solid defensively. At least, they won’t concede 7 against Liverpool.

Follow Vadim on Twitter: @vadimlukomski

Photo: Dmitry Burdonov, Ilya Sokolov