Zenit St Petersburg stepped towards the Uefa Cup semi-final with a 4-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen.
Three second-half goals seal easy win
Zenit St Petersburg took a massive step towards the semi-final of the Uefa Cup after a 4-1 demolition of Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
After the two sides shared the spoils in the first period, three quick second-half goals make next Thursday's second-leg in Russia a formality.
The Russian side took a deserved lead thanks to Andrei Arshavin's brilliant individual effort on 20 minutes.
The forward picked up a poor Tranquillo Barnetta pass on the right and dribbled past the German defence before driving his shot into the roof of the net.
Zenit pressed for a second but Bayer equalised on 34 minutes thanks to Stefan Kiessling.
Drilled
His goal came after Arshavin gave the ball away to Barnetta on the right who released Vratislav Gresko. He got to the by-line and his cross was met by Bernd Schneider who headed goal-wards but Roman Shirokov cleared off the line, with the rebound falling to Kiessling who drilled a left-footed shot into the bottom left-hand corner.
But the Russians were then back in front just eight minutes after the re-start thanks to the brilliance of Arshavin again.
He collected the ball on the left wing and got to the by-line before putting in a perfect cross which Pavel Pogrebniak side-footed in for his ninth goal in the competition.
Zenit then added a third on 61 minutes thanks to Alexander Anyukov's right-footed effort from outside the area after the Bayer defence stood off him.
Igor Denisov then completed the rout three minutes later with a clinical finish into the bottom right-hand corner, to round off a fantastic counter-attacking move from the away side.
