Marked for Rustam Dolgorukov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Aug 2032
No end in sight to Irkutsk's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Irkutsk has to find a result from somewhere.
Market9 Aug 2032
Zvezda come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Irkutsk did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2032
Everything agreed with Fakel, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2032
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Barnaul keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2032
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.
Match7 Aug 2032
1‑2 to Spartak Moscow 2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Aug 2032
Words exchanged at Irkutsk
Marek Jaroň 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2032
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.
Market9 Aug 2032
Marek Jaroň told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Marek Jaroň has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Irkutsk.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jul 2032
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Irkutsk have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2032
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Irkutsk have done the hard part with Dinamo Barnaul, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad12 Jul 2032
A row about effort at Irkutsk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vojtěch Hranoš was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2032
Irkutsk asked and Krylya Sovetov said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market12 Jul 2032
The name of Daniil Konovalov has come up in conversations Irkutsk were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad12 Jul 2032
47 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad12 Jul 2032
Words exchanged at Irkutsk
Roger Motingea 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 dugout12 Jul 2032
“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.
Squad12 Jul 2032
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jun 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Igor Atamanskiy
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Irkutsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Words exchanged at Irkutsk
Marek Jaroň 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.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rustam Dolgorukov has just signed for Irkutsk, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom14 Jun 2032
Irtysh will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nikita Artemov has pre-agreed a move to Irkutsk, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vojtěch Hranoš 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.
Market14 Jun 2032
The Dawid Keller talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Irkutsk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The terraces14 Jun 2032
The stands have heard the Vojtěch Hranoš talk too
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Irkutsk would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
Market14 Jun 2032
Irkutsk shop where it costs nothing
Rustam Dolgorukov signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
Market14 Jun 2032
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Dec 2030
Ilya Koval in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Uni-X Labs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
This is not rotation. Florjan Pusi has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Uni-X Labs is pretending otherwise.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
The manager makes an example of Zaur Kasaev
“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.