Marked for Ivan Pugachevskiy
From our football correspondent
Steady
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 Tver this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
Tver cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Tver training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilja Antsiferov 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 dugout9 Nov 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.” Artyom Gorbachev chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Torpedo Vladimir will be the happier side with the point.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Marat Bairamov is still paying for one afternoon at Tver
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.
Market9 Nov 2026
The name of Kirill Dudkin keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tver say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Muslim Nabiev: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tver have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Tver
Timur Pazylov 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Tver
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yegor Ponomarev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Yegor Ponomarev did the work nobody counts — 6.62
9 combined actions and 6.62. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Tver
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 dugout26 Oct 2026
Vyacheslav Shataev is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout26 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Oct 2026
Tver refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 15 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Tver
Kirill Dudkin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 308% of everything Tver 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout5 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Anton Khomyakov has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad5 Oct 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Timur Pazylov knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Timur Pazylov'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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
Pobeda come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Tver did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.33, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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 Tver, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Tver until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Everything agreed with Spartak Moscow, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
He is 23 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Anton Khomyakov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tver.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tver has been clear about where Vyacheslav Shataev stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tver can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
Tver say no — this time
The offer from Nosta for Nikita Oleinik was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Tver
Timur Pazylov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Tver asked and Saturn 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
Fedor Motovilov 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
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Nikita Yeremenko is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Boris Tsygankov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Tver.
The dugout7 Sep 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.