Zenit St Petersburg seek revenge in Terek Grozny title push

Moscow: Zenit St Petersburg will be wary of the counter-attacking force of hosts Terek Grozny on Wednesday as the Russian Premier League leaders close on the title.

Top of the table with 51 points from 21 matches, eight ahead of second-placed CSKA Moscow, Zenit enjoyed a morale boosting 2-1 win over defending champions CSKA on the weekend but will be out for revenge for a 3-1 home defeat to Terek in their last meeting in November.

"My job is to make sure we win the league, and do everything that we can for that. It (the title race) is still very open and there are still many games to play," said Zenit coach Andre Villas-Boas.

Terek won 1-0 away at Ufa at the weekend and will be a tough proposition with their noisy home crowd behind them.

"We need to give it everything we have in every league match," Terek coach Rashid Rakhimov said.

"We did that well in Ufa, but now we need to consolidate our success against the league leaders."

Meanwhile, CSKA will have to shrug off that loss at St Petersburg as they go into the Moscow derby with Dynamo, also on Wednesday.

"It`s obvious that it will be extremely hard to catch Zenit," CSKA coach Leonid Slutsky said. "Our main goal is to play quality football and get maximum points from the remaining matches."

Dynamo, who have a game in hand, want all three points against the Red Army side to keep alive their chances of a place in European next season.

"We missed a hatful of chances to win our previous match and paid the price for our wastefulness," Dynamo manager Stanislav Cherchesov said.

FC Krasnodar are unbeaten in 10 Premiership matches and are primed to climb from third to second at Rubin Kazan on Tuesday as the battle for places in next season`s Champions League intensifies.

"We`re all set to get a positive result in Kazan because every single Premiership match is currently a key game for us," Krasnodar head coach Oleg Kononov said.