Zenit St Petersburg are well on their way to the UEFA Cup semi-finals after putting four away goals past Bayer Leverkusen in a 4-1 victory.Pavel Pogrebniak, Aleksandr Aniukov and Igor Denisov hit three goals in 20 minutes after the restart to put the visitors in command of their quarter-final tie with 2001 Champions League finalists.
Stefan Kiessling pulled one back for the hosts in the first half after Andrei Arshavin had opened the scoring.
Zenit's threat built steadily from the start and they went ahead after just 20 minutes.
There appeared to be no threat when Tranquillo Barnetta tried to keep the ball in on the halfway line, but his pass was intercepted by Arshavin who bombed down the right and into the area, outpacing the Leverkusen defence, and lifted the ball over Adler at the near post.
A string of corners kept pressure on Leverkusen straight after the goal, but the hosts seemed to be back in the game in the 34th minute when a shot from Bernd Schneider was cleared off line only as far as Kiessling, who was left with an easy finish to tie the game.
The game remained balanced until the break, but after the restart Dick Advocaat's team ran away with the game and perhaps the tie.
Pogrebniak struck first on 53 minutes when Arshavin broke away down the right, outpacing the Leverkusen defence again, and squared the ball to the unmarked Russian forward on the right of the area to tap into the empty net.
Leverkusen tried to come back again but seven minutes later Aniukov put the result beyond doubt.
The German defence backed off the advancing Russian right-back, tempting him to take a shot from 25 yards that bounced just in front of the diving Adler and into the left-hand side of the net.
Three minutes later and Zenit confirmed their dominance when a great pass from midfield found Viktor Faitzulin. He in turn played it on to Denisov who, with yards of space on the right, shot past Adler from the edge of the area.
Zenit could have added more, but go back to Russia confident of advancing to face Bayern Munich or Getafe in the semi-final.
More Football News from TEAMtalk
