Why bolstering the squad aimlessly makes no sense for Zenit St. Petersburg 

Zenit Saint Petersburg are gunning for their fourth straight Russian Premier League title this season. It has reached a point of formality in Russia for them to lift the league title at the end of the season.

With strong financial backing from oil giants Gazprom, Zenit continues to dominate a division where the Moscow clubs are left in a state of ruin.

Lokomotiv Moscow is not the same as 2017, the last time Russia saw a different national champion.

Spartak Moscow continues to decline and seems to have met a similar fate to Rubin Kazan. CSKA's renaissance is only recent. Moreover, they lack the financial muscle of the Sky-Blues.

Dynamo Moscow reflects a classic underdog story of the lowest-ranked Moscow club in the top-division playing out of their skin to give the league some respectability. As things stand, they remain essentially the only team in Russia this season that can compete with Zenit for the standings.

Sergey Semak's men are still in the lead, two points ahead of Dynamo with twelve games remaining. While the squad before the winter break was more than strong to continue their monopoly in the division, Gazprom decided to invest more. As many as three players arrived at Saint Petersburg in the winter.

Zenit has no European ambition

While they won a domestic double last season and are on course for a fourth Russian Premiership title, their performances in Europe have been below par.

Under Andreas Villas-Boas, the club finished the group stages of the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League season with a record six wins in six matches. They lost to SL Benfica in the round of 16.

However, Zenit have failed to make it out of the group stages in each of the seven seasons since. The last three seasons under Semak have been nothing but disappointing.

They finished bottom of the group twice and have managed to salvage a third-placed finish to earn a spot in the Europa League this season.

Quite understandably, the Champions League is not a priority for the Sky Blues.

Sergey Semak and eastern European football

Sergey Semak, for one, was brought in to stabilize the club after the departure of Roberto Mancini. Given the club's lack of domestic success during their 2014-2018 spell, Semak did an excellent job of giving them back-to-back titles.

Since then, it has become a much easier challenge.

Semak has no incentive to push for greater glory in Europe and most Eastern European clubs put a higher priority on local derbies and national championships. Essentially, all the investment Gazprom has made over the last four years has yielded to nothing but four division titles in a monopolized league.