Enjoyed their best ever season in 2017/18 when the highest in history league finish was secured and also Ufa qualified for Europe for the first time in their history. However, the season that followed was very contrasting with Ufa not making it past the third qualifying round in Europe, exiting the Russian Cup at the first hurdle and narrowly escaping relegation after 2:1 aggregate win in the decisive play-of vs. Tom Tomsk.
Ufa took risk with the inexperienced Tomarov in charge at the start of the season and after dubious transfer activity in the summer, failures both in Europa League and the Russian Cup, plus just 2 wins in the opening 13 rounds in the league he was sacked.
Kirichenko had short spell in charge in terms of games, he was responsible for only 6 rounds on each side of the winter break, but due to run of only 1 win in those games he was also sacked.
By the time SKA’s manager Evseev was appointed in late March Ufa were in the bottom 2 and direct relegation seemed very likely. Decisive for avoiding the drop were the narrow home wins vs. Rostov and Ural in April, with 4 consecutive away draws in-between also helping a lot.
All season Ufa struggled to find reliable centre forward, 4 players were constantly rotating in the role and if not for Sly’s goals the relegation would have happened. The defensive stability was also not as good as in years past and it seems that work need to be done on the transfer market if Ufa are to stay out trouble next season.
