Rubin regain top seat

With just a handful of games left to go this season, the fight for the Russian Premier League title is reaching its peak. Spartak Moscow was leading the pack for a day before Rubin reclaimed the top spot on Sunday.

Rostov 1-2 Rubin

Rubin went into the weekend leading by a single point, but Spartak Moscow took over ownership of the summit on Saturday.

The champions were playing without Sergey Semak and Aleksandr Bukharov, but managed to claim a hundred percent record in Rostov. Alejandro Dominguez put the visitors on top 15 minutes in. He scored his 15th goal of the season – the second best in the league.

Just before the break, Christian Ansaldi doubled the advantage with his first goal of the 2009 campaign.

A few minutes later, Mirsudin Ahmetovic pulled one back for the hosts, but the rest of the game went scoreless and Rubin is on top of the table again, a point ahead of Spartak.

Zenit 2-2 Spartak Nalchik

Zenit, meanwhile, held on to third spot despite failing to see off lowly Spartak Nalchik at home.
Vladimir Bistrov's early goal was cancelled out moments later with the wondrous effort from Spartak's David Siradze.

The hosts got back on track right before the half hour mark after Fatih Tekke made the most of a messy display in the Nalchik defence.

But Zenit's hopes of maximum points were dashed when Leandro and his trusty right foot made it 2-all.
The Petersburg men now lie 6 points adrift of the leaders.

CSKA 1-3 FC Moscow

CSKA's chances of clinching a fourth national crown in seven years looks all but out the window now after going down 3-1 at home to FC Moscow.

After a well-taken Dmitry Tarasov header at 10 minutes, the visitors doubled their advantage soon afterwards. Aleksey Rebko did the necessary after Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev upended dangerman Edgaras Chesnauskis.

And yet, more woe was poured upon Juande Ramos and company half a dozen minutes from the break – as Alexandru Epureanu was gifted far too much space before rifling to the net.

Tomash Necid's late goal was small consolation as CSKA dropped three points they could ill afford with just four games to go.

Amkar 0-0 Tom

Bore draw was the name of the game in the day's opening match-up between Amkar and Tom

The visitor's Aleksandr Kharitonov had the only real effort of note in the opening 45 minutes but he failed to upset the home crowd.

The second half wasn’t pretty either, but when the sun finally came out it seemed to awaken Amkar, who went close a couple of times right at the death.

But 0-0 was how it finished, doing little to boost either side's hopes of escaping the drop at the end of the season.

Kuban 1-1 Dynamo

Dynamo failed to get closer to the top drawing with Kuban on the road.

Kuban opened the scoring through Draman Traore after a terrible mistake by Vladimir Granat.

Dynamo equalised five minutes into the second half, though. Dmitry Khokhlov was denied but Dmitry Kombarov fired home on the rebound, for a final score of 1-1.