Leonid Kuchuk: "We played responsibly"

Lokomotiv head coach Leonid Kuchuk told the after-match press-conference about the players' injuries and thanked his team for their performance.

- Lokomotiv had some problems with filling in defensive midfielders zone. You introduced Shishkin there. Are you happy with how he performed?
- Well, if you bear in mind that yesterday I had only 10 minutes to explain him how to play a defensive midfielder then my answer is yes, he demonstrated a solid understanding of this role. Roman used to play in this position once, but that was long ago. Of course, you cannot learn in 10 minutes what people learn for 10 years.

- In Ekaterinburg you won with the same score. How have Ural changed since then?
- They are demonstrating a good combinational football. It's not just by chance that they won two opening games in spring. I would call them one of the most dangerous teams in the league now.

- What happened to Diarra?
- Not only to Diarra. Mikhalik also fell ill, just yesterday was he able to join us at the practice. Lass injured his back due to the artificial turf in Perm, Ozdoyev got injured two days ago. I nearly had a heart attack! Do we need 10 defensive midfielders? So I'm happy the team played responsibly. Well, we gave up the initiative after the first 25 minutes but still did not allow the visitors create chances. At the end of the day, we won. I like how the substitutes played: Tkachyov, Mikhalik and Pavlyuchenko. They did what they had to do. I want to thank the guys, and I repeat that today we played responsibly.

- How is Boussoufa?
- I cannot tell you this. Not now. Injuries differ. I can only say it's an ankle injury.  

- Do the events at other clubs bother you somehow? Sometimes you're not even sure who's your vis-a-vis.
- I play against teams, not against coaches. And I follow a game, not staff changes.

- You don't like to talk about winning the title but considering the problems your opponents are experiencing...
- Everybody has their own problems, I don't think about opponents. They deal with their problems, we deal with ours. Everybody's trying to solve their issues. Who could predict we would lose 6 defensive midfielders? Nobody. And there're still eight games to play.