Marked for Alexandr Sirotkov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Dec 2026
Znamya Truda throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Rotor 2 the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Znamya Truda will enjoy reviewing.
Match26 Dec 2026
8 matches without a win for Znamya Truda
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Znamya Truda are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A brace, and Rohan Vaughan takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rohan Vaughan provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Savva Ponomarev 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcin Wodecki 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 155% of everything Znamya Truda earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Znamya Truda told Dmitry Tashov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Dec 2026
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match19 Dec 2026
5 matches without a goal for Znamya Truda
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Alexandr Lazarev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Yegor Pozdnyakov 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.
Match19 Dec 2026
Strogino left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Stavpets, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Platon Dorokhov to a room that had heard them before.
Market21 Dec 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Alexandr Sirotkov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Znamya Truda.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad19 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 Znamya Truda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yegor Pozdnyakov 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Something was said to Alexandr Lazarev and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Match17 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Ryazan leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Platon Dorokhov after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Looking ahead19 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alexandr Sirotkov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Znamya Truda needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The deal with Torpedo Moscow is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Alexandr Lazarev 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Znamya Truda asked and Rotor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Yegor Pozdnyakov 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 25 days on the sidelines for Kirill Grishin, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Znamya Truda, another week without a signature from Semyon Zaets.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Znamya Truda are still strangers to each other
16 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Dmitry Tashov knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dmitry Tashov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexandr Sirotkov has just signed for Znamya Truda, and for once the answer mattered.
Match29 Aug 2026
Whatever happens, Znamya Truda do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. SKA Khabarovsk have kept their man, and Znamya Truda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marcin Wodecki was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Leon Borković
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Daniel Yegorov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan move for Alexey Koltakov is in the works
Znamya Truda have made the call to Torpedo Moscow. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Evgeny Morev beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 31. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Artem Tarasov, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 9.36
A mark of 9.36 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Artem Tarasov, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Savva Ponomarev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Znamya Truda asked and Cherepovets said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcin Wodecki 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Nikita Getman has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.