“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
The terraces13 Dec 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 18 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Denis Terentjev 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.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Ilja Kirsh 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.
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Mikhailov 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Zenit 2 pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 4 of the 16 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Zenit 2 will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Mikhailov 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Yenisey 2 kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Zenit 2 will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Mikhailov 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.