FC Shakhtar Director of Football Darijo Srna on upcoming match with Chornomorets, staff situation and refereeing in match against Rukh.

– Has your excitement after the match against RB Leipzig passed already? Are you preparing for Chornomorets?
– Yes it has. But it is not that we forget everything the next day and completely switched our thoughts to the upcoming game. Such game, as match against RB Leipzig, will be in our minds for a long time. But you are right, there is no time to celebrate, especially when this is the first round match. Today we think about Chornomorets more comparing to RB Leipzig.

– Is everyone completely ready for the match?
– Some players have minor injuries, but everyone is in good shape, except for Viktor Korniienko. And Mykhailo Mudryk skips the match because of sending-off in the game against Rukh.

– A lot of experts expressed their opinions regarding this sending-off, what do you think?
– I think that there was no sending-off at all and the referee made a mistake. Such mistakes attract attention. The player is sent off in the first half, an attacking leader. And it is done calmly without any doubts. Rukh player continued to play easily confirming that there is no injury or roughing in Mudryk’s actions.

– What can you say regarding refereeing after three rounds in general?
– You know, it is too early to draw any conclusions, even after Mudryk’s sending-off. And I have always said: everyone makes mistakes. The question is whether this mistake was deliberately made in the interests of the rival team or it was accidental. Aranovskyi is an experienced referee and in our case I think that it was an intentional mistake. Someone saw themselves in the first place from the first round and assigned an observer role to us. But something went wrong, and we see already that the refereeing factor comes to the fore. I don’t want to talk about referees after every round. I’d rather talk about football. But if referees are motivated to make intentional mistakes, we will not be silent.