Marked for Timothy Robert
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Nart
Alexandr Olenev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Nart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Djumaev is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market18 Jan 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Nart know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Match18 Jan 2027
Continental football is in reach for Nart
35 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Eldar Tkhakokhov has written the date down.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Nart would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nart, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad18 Jan 2027
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Nart the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match9 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Nart's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Nart has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Nart
Alexandr Olenev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Nart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Djumaev is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match9 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Pavel Popov to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
A touch he did not mean and a goal that goes in the book with his name against it. Nart will not blame him tonight and he will not need them to.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Oleg Korotkov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Khyzyr Appaev out for 106 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market12 Oct 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rustam Dolgorukov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Nart
Alexandr Olenev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match10 Oct 2026
Rubin Yalta left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Pavel Popov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Boardroom12 Oct 2026
Nart counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Nart now.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Khyzyr Appaev out for 113 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nart this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Amir Djumaev falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match3 Oct 2026
Three points for Nart, 2‑1 the final word against Pobeda in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
399% of the income goes out in wages at Nart
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.60 on the card, and the Nart support went home talking about one name.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Akhmed Ismailov named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Akhmed Ismailov is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Pavel Popov kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Khyzyr Appaev out for 121 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Sep 2026
3‑0, and Kurban Kurbanov took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Nart tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Bogdan Matsola at 21 — 7.61
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Bogdan Matsola did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.91 for the rest of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Akhmed Ismailov delivers — 7.70
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Akhmed Ismailov scored, was marked 7.70, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Nart
Alexandr Olenev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Nart are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Nart
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matvey Filipovskiy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
Nart bow out of the cup
Kaluga go through and Nart go home, 2‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Nart
Alexandr Olenev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Nart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Djumaev is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match22 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Nart against Sevastopol
1‑2 to Sevastopol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Aug 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.