After months of speculation, and with only two games in the new season, the upper echelons pulled the plug on Smorodskaya's disastrous tenure and relieved Smorodskaya herself and Cherechenko from their duties. Ilya Herkus was brought in in place of Smorodskaya and with the goal of resolving the previous board's fractious relationship with the fans and bring them back to the stadium, Lokomotiv appointed Yury Semin as their manager for the fourth time. In also came crowd favourite Dmitri Loskov, who was assigned to assist Semin with his duties. Despite the good aura brought by the change in management, Lokomotiv's performances seldom improved and a tumultuous season ended up in Lokomotiv placing in a disappointing eighth position. In what was probably the only highlight of the season, Lokomotiv, however, managed to snatch the Russian Cup for a joint record seventh time by crushing Ural Yekaterinburg's dreams of their first ever piece of silverware with a two-nil victory.