Marked for Artem Stepanov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Nov 2026
Utrecht are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 24 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match7 Nov 2026
10 unbeaten for Utrecht
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Utrecht did not have in the autumn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
75 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad9 Nov 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Raheem Sterling 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.08 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.54, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Fortuna Sittard runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Artem Stepanov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Utrecht
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Raheem Sterling was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adrian Blake, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Utrecht man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Raheem Sterling was the best thing in any of them.
Market12 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Heracles next, and one man in the Utrecht dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Next up at home: Heracles, who go into it in position 14. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad21 Sep 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
At 18 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Utrecht
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Raheem Sterling was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Artem Stepanov
“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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Marius Broholm's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market21 Sep 2026
Utrecht have made Yoann Cathline available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market14 Sep 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.
Squad14 Sep 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Market14 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Cambuur moved on, Massien Ghaddari reports back to Utrecht, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad14 Sep 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match12 Sep 2026
Volendam made Utrecht work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.10 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Utrecht, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
-
The dugout
No hiding place for Adrian Blake
-
The dugout
The view from the dugout
-
The dugout
Artem Stepanov knocks on the manager's door