negative football and volume of supposed fixed draws became a big issue for lots of teams in soviet football in the 70s. the league was similar to contemporary serie A in its low scoring and suspected corruption, with the 70s arguably being a peak.
It's difficult to tell from later interviews with different players/managers etc just how much was really going on, quite a few will say it only tended to happen in circumstances like late season games that had big stakes for both teams. How much was just paranoia from the authorities? - who expected corruption in anything as the easy option for blame, as so many had become corrupt themselves. mythmaking from fans , again easy to understand as the overall system had become so corrupt, or simply a product of a football system that by then had settled into being much better at producing good quality midfield area players rather than forwards. Blokhin was really the only consistent 1 goal every 2 games forward over most of decade, and he was hardly a deadly finishing 9, getting most of his goals through the amount of chances he created with other attributes like movement, pace, dribbling. Other above average forwards tended to have strengths as roaming supporting types rather than prolific goalscorers.
The "away model" came about in this environment. With Lobanovsky, Bazilevich and Zelentsov team committing 100% with their sports science approach, they came to the conclusion that in a low scoring league (with a small squad) being attacking in most home games with the new pressing ideas etc, combined with a counterattacking catenaccio'ish approach in most away games (as initial tactical approach) was the most efficient approach to comfortably guarantee winning the league.
It probably reached an extreme in that 1977 season win because of the player rebellion in 76, over the workload of their training methods and extra national team/olympic games they were playing, which seemed to have burned a lot out after the great 74 and 75 seasons. He was apparently close to being sacked, and i'd imagine had to scale back significantly - for a time - on a lot of the more intense new training/playing ideas, so adapted to the situation by emphasising the more defensive away model side of it all to a level that would have had Capello nodding. That season wasn't a sustainable approach after the draw points limit was introduced, and more of a unique situation made possible because of the shadier aspects of the league. His training also would have become more refined to avoid such a situation again. It's easy to forget the trial and error that must have been involved with trying to implement a lot of these new scientifically based ideas to training at the time, with the relatively limited resources they had compared to modern clubs (or the bigger western clubs of the time), and players that weren't necessarily fully buying into it all. Blokhin has said that the 80s teams were a lot more aware and dedicated to things as a collective, while the mid-70s was more individualistic/divided.
