Marked for Dmitry Pestryakov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Feb 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Krasnodar moved on, Ilja Lantratov reports back to Lokomotiv Moscow, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lokomotiv Moscow know it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Sergey Pinyaev 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.
Market8 Feb 2027
The name of Dmitry Pestryakov has come up in conversations Lokomotiv Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Nobody could get near Lucas Vera
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Sergey Pinyaev
8 goals and a season average of 7.42 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Mao Hosoya
“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 ratings8 Feb 2027
Sergey Pinyaev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.68. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Jan 2027
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The season belongs to Mao Hosoya
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Lokomotiv Moscow have had the benefit of it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Dmitry Pestryakov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match2 Jan 2027
Krasnodar left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market4 Jan 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Sergey Pinyaev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Shots: 8, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” Arsenal Tula suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to Lokomotiv Moscow, and the summer will force it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match10 Oct 2026
12 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dmitry Pestryakov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 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 Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Lokomotiv Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubén Sobrino 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.20, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad12 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
It needed César Montes to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against CSKA Moscow, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxim Boldyrev
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akron lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 29. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Akron's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Akron has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Akron
Artem Dzyuba 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Lokomotiv Moscow pay $600.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Akron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roberto Fernández 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Khetag Khosonov
“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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Sergey Pinyaev at 21 — 9.12
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sergey Pinyaev did not need any: 9.12, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
RC Lens pay $7.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Dmitry Vorobjov was one of the reasons people came, and $7.6M does not replace that by itself.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dmitry Pestryakov has just signed for Lokomotiv Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sergey Pinyaev 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 9.22 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Zelimkhan Bakaev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ilja Lantratov
“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.