Super Eagles’ new dribbling wizard overpowers Victor Moses in the Moscow derby

The former Chelsea winger performed decently for the visitors on Monday, but it was his younger compatriot that emerged on the winning side

Nigerian stars Victor Moses and Chidera Ejuke were involved in the latest Main Moscow derby, but it was the latter who celebrated at the end as a late Anton Zabolotny effort earned CSKA Moscow the bragging rights against Spartak Moscow inside the VEB Arena.

Before the Monday evening clash, the two city rivals had endured a mixed start to the Russian Premier League campaign, each winning three and losing three of their first seven matches.

And it was no surprise that the two managers, in search of all three points, threw their Nigerian imports in their starting elevens, with both among their respective side’s most creative players.

Ejuke, CSKA’s man of the match in their 2-2 draw away to Arsenal Tula eight days ago, was yet again impressive for Aleksey Berezutski’s men.

The new Super Eagles poster boy completed three of five dribble attempts, had a 75% pass accuracy, and won five of his nine ground duels.

But former Nigerian international Moses outshined his younger compatriot by some distance. The Spartak number eight recorded two more dribbles, won four more ground duels, and had more touches than Ejuke.

Still, it all came to nothing as Zabolotny struck in the 81st minute to send Ejuke and teammates into celebration.

The 23-year-old was withdrawn four minutes later, only for the goalscorer to be shown a red card in stoppage time.

But CSKA held on for their fourth win of the campaign to send the Rui Vitoria-led visitors back home empty-handed.

Dribbling wizard Ejuke, It would be recalled, dropped a man-of-the-match display when the Super Eagles came from a goal down to defeat Cape Verde earlier this month.