There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandr Khubulov provided it, and the 8.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Danila Yanov 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.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Vladislav Kostin is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
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.” Nikita Sychev kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
Something was said to Artemy Kosogorov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Akron in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ilja Porokhov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
In brief
SquadDavid Kokoev is not doing himself any favours
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
Dmitry Alexandrov 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 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Dmitry Alexandrov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Shinnik have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shinnik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniil Martovoy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Alexandr Khubulov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Artur Cherny
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nikita Sychev chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Arseny Zheleznov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shinnik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Danila Yanov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Shinnik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Shinnik told Artemy Kosogorov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Artem Arutyunov has moved up it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. David Kokoev has, at Shinnik, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shinnik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Shinnik asked and Lokomotiv Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandr Khubulov. 2‑1 against Arsenal Tula, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 21 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Nosta scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Nosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
A brace, and Avram Lukić takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Avram Lukić provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nosta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Chertanovo is saying, and nobody at Nosta is enjoying the guessing.
Maxim Kolmakov 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Nosta people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nosta can pretend not to have heard.
Maxim Kolmakov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neftekhimik have kept their man, and Nosta go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxim Khachatryan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout26 Jul 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Alexei Medvedev to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nosta they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Everything agreed with Leningradets, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Chertanovo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Nosta asked and Sokol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Nosta told Danila Boiko something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vladimir Platonov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Nosta asked and Ryazan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Dinamo Bryansk have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nosta they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nosta can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Nosta has been clear about where Ruslan Karavalliev stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nosta they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. David Kokoev has agreed terms with Spartak Kostroma for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Maxim Kolmakov 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 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Pchelintsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nosta the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Maxim Kolmakov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Sprinz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Kokoev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ondřej Sprinz 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ruslan Karavalliev may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
31 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nosta they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ondřej Sprinz 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.
20 years old, every age group at this club behind him, and a borrowed player of much the same standard in front of him every Saturday. The parents in the stand have noticed, and so has every kid below him.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxim Khachatryan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ondřej Sprinz signs something — a contract at Nosta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Maxim Kolmakov 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Ondřej Sprinz 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nosta, another week without a signature from Ruslan Karavalliev.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Avram Lukić signs something — a contract at Nosta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nosta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vladimir Platonov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 20 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Avram Lukić signs something — a contract at Nosta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Nosta could ask drops and the wages David Kokoev can ask rise.
31 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nosta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Maxim Kolmakov 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Ondřej Sprinz 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.
At 20, Danil Batyrshin has come through every age group this club has, and now watches a borrowed player of much the same level start every week. An academy notices these things, and so do the parents in the stand.
Nobody at Nosta will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Nosta has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal with Rostov 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nosta can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Sprinz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Nosta will try again when the window opens; Pobeda may not be selling by then.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nosta, another week without a signature from David Kokoev.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Nosta people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Everything agreed with Akhmat Grozny, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Nosta asked and Rostov said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ondřej Sprinz signs something — a contract at Nosta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Nosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nosta asked and Uralets-TS said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Ondřej Sprinz 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Avram Lukić signs something — a contract at Nosta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
MarketThe clock does David Kokoev’s negotiating for him
Nosta offered $240.0K; Uralets-TS said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ondřej Sprinz 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Maxim Khachatryan is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
SquadDavid Kokoev is the weekend's best young player
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Nosta have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. David Kokoev did not need any: 8.21, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Maxim Khachatryan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilja Popov 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Nosta pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Krylya Sovetov 2 will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Nosta were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.44, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
David Kokoev, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vladimir Platonov is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Maxim Kolmakov 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Maxim Khachatryan 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.
At 20 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.
Stanislav Irshev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Ilja Popov 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.
It needed Arseny Vainer to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Khimik, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Alexei Medvedev chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Nosta scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
At 20 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.
Stanislav Irshev 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Danila Boiko. 2‑1 against Dinamo Barnaul, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Sprinz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ondřej Sprinz 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Maxim Khachatryan 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Yegor Shalimov is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nosta will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Sprinz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 8, 14 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Alexei Medvedev after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
7.61, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Stanislav Irshev 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Maxim Khachatryan 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.
A 2‑0 win over Krylya Sovetov 2, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Nosta will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Nosta go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Alexei Medvedev after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Stanislav Irshev 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Nosta will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nosta, another week without a signature from Maxim Kolmakov.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout17 Aug 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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Alexei Medvedev to a room that had heard them before.