SPARTAK Moscow have reinstated their captain and a key player after they sacked their manager Massimo Carrera, ahead of their trip to face Rangers.
The Russians axed under-fire Carrera after a dismal home defeat to Arsenal Tula in the league - their fourth home game in a row they've failed to win.
That was enough for their board to dump former Juventus boss Carrera before they travelled to Scotland to face Rangers.
And they immediately handed a reprieve to captain Denis Glushakov and defender Andrei Yeshchenko, who had been forced to train with the reserves by Carrera after a bizarre bust-up.
The pair were initially suspended after they were accused of pressing the 'like' button on an Instagram post by Russian actor Dmitry Nazarov mocking Carrera, who led them to the title last year.
The actor wrote: "Carrera isn't our happiness. How many disgraces do we need before our gratefulness runs out?"
Carrera was enraged when both players appeared to agree with the post and suspended the duo before ordering them to train with the stiffs.
But as soon as it became clear they had axed the manager, Spartak immediately applied for two visas for the pair to be in their squad for the match against Rangers.
Captain Glushakov has won 57 caps for Russia and the 31-year-old experienced holding midfielder helped Spartak win a league and cup double last year.
And veteran right back Yeshchenko is also a Russian international, with both now back in their squad to face Steven Gerrard's side.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here