“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 The request is on a desk at Akron 2, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Rubin 2 left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Morozov 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.
Alexandr Morozov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron 2 can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Alexandr Morozov 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.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodion Kulyakhtin 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron 2 can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Nikita Chelyshev, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Timofey Blokhin again, and this time the name on the line is Akhmat Grozny. Akron 2 are listening politely and promising nothing.