Mystery surrounds Uzbek midfield

FootballAsia October 7 The left side of midfield is appears to be Uzbekistan coach Bobby Houghton's biggest area of concern ahead of Saturday's 2006 World Cup Qualification AFC Play-off first leg replay, as injuries, inexperience and conflicting announcements add to the Uzbek fans' confusion. At the start of the week Uzbekistan announced their preliminary 22-man squad and the only two players listed who are recognized left midfielders are Leonid Koshelev and Marat Bikmoev. Meanwhile, the official website of Russian Premier League side Rostov has claimed that experienced campaigner Andrey Akopyants, who has played 40 times for his country, has also been included in the squad for Bahrain. Uzbekistan have changed their head coach three times during the final round of qualifiers starting the campaign against Saudi Arabia in February with Hans Juergen Goede at the helm before poor results saw the German replaced after three matches by Ravshan Haydarov, who in turn made way for Englishman Bobby Houghton for the Uzbeks final qualifier against Kuwait. Goede favoured Akopyants for the first two games before he was benched in the 2-1 defeat against Kuwait, Goede's last in charge, coming on in the 81st minute for Koshelev. Koshelev played the full 90 minutes of the 1-1 home draw with Korea Republic and the 3-0 loss away to Saudi Arabia under Haydarov, while Akopyants wasn't in the squad. Akopyants was back in the squad for the final qualifying match against Kuwait, which the Uzbeks had to win in order to meet Bahrain in the AFC Play-offs. Houghton had taken over the head coach role with Haydarov being appointed his assistant and the Englishman made the surprise decision to start with veteran Fezvi Davletov, who played 52 minutes before being replaced by the 19-year-old Bikmoev. Koshelev, incidentally, was not in the side due to a knee injury. In the cancelled first leg play-off against Bahrain, Koshelev was again sidelined, Akopyants was not selected and Bikmoev was on the bench, but it remains to be seen whether the same applies on Saturday. While the former is back and available for selection, Haydarov feels that Koshelev has not had sufficient games under his belt to earn a place in the starting 11. "[Leonid] Koshelov and [Viktor] Karpenko are both back in our squad after recovered from injuries but as they have not played any games, they are unlikely to start on Saturday", Haydarov told FootballAsia.com. Meanwhile, Akopyants played in two of his club's last three games in the Russian Premier League against Lokomotiv and Alania. If Koshelev lack of match sharpness rules him out and Akopyants doesn't make the final cut, then Houghton could gamble on the up and coming Bikmoev. The energetic Pakhtakor star was well praised by Kuwait coach Mihai Stoichita after he impressed with his lively second half performance in Uzbekistan's crucial 3-2 win, but Houghton thinks that Bikmoev is probably still too young to have a big effect on the match. "I think, he is going to be a good player, but he is still young, not 20 years old yet and he needs to improve a lot", Houghton told FootballAsia.com. "I need to work with him and get him organized and make sure he understands that it is not just about going forward and crossing, you got to do the defending as well. "It is OK to play the way he did against Kuwait in the second half because we were attacking and attacking and attacking, but against Bahrain we will also have to defend and he has to do that as well if he wants to play in midfield. "It was a good start for him against Kuwait, but he still needs to concentrate on his defensive duties as well."