Oliver Whatmuff 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.
Squad15 Nov 2032
Denver Hume 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.
“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.
Squad15 Nov 2032
7 new faces, and Fleetwood Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fleetwood Town has been clear about where Reno Wilmots stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout15 Nov 2032
Ivan Petrov 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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Kaidon Robinson has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Burton Albion next, and one man in the Fleetwood Town dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Denver Hume was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout18 Oct 2032
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Fleetwood Town will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fleetwood Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. George Davies will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fleetwood Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Theo Outen 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Denver Hume was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Fleetwood Town, another week without a signature from Tiago Sá.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Luki-Energiya lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Luki-Energiya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings25 Aug 2031
Rafal Szymanski could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.44
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.44, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
A mark of 8.30 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-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 Luki-Energiya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ruslan Kazakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 19 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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Luki-Energiya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Luki-Energiya can tell you which week it ends in.
Ilja Salnikov 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 gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Saturn have kept their man, and Luki-Energiya go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad4 Aug 2031
Words at Luki-Energiya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruslan Kazakov 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.
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Luki-Energiya lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Luki-Energiya can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Karim El Mohamady will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Luki-Energiya the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Luki-Energiya have made the call to Spartak Kostroma. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Luki-Energiya have made the call to Krasnodar. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Luki-Energiya lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Ilja Salnikov 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.
Luki-Energiya asked and Dinamo Makhachkala said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Pugachevskiy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Luki-Energiya have made the call to KAMAZ. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Spartak Moscow have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Luki-Energiya, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Position 3, 53 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.
“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 Luki-Energiya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ilja Salnikov 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.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Words at Luki-Energiya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roman Minaev 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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Luki-Energiya did not want this conversation and are having it anyway. A manager wanted elsewhere is a manager whose next contract talk just became more expensive.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roman Minaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Petrov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Luki-Energiya the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Luki-Energiya have received the call every well-run club eventually receives — somebody bigger has noticed Yefrem Zaytsev. Saying no is easy; keeping him convinced is the actual work.
Matvey Kholin 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ilja Salnikov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Luki-Energiya told Ivan Petrov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Luki-Energiya, and both men came out saying it was fine.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Luki-Energiya could ask drops and the wages Martin Ajer can ask rise.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Roman Minaev are not good
“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 Luki-Energiya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom24 Feb 2031
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Luki-Energiya 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.
Ilja Salnikov 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.
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad24 Feb 2031
Roman Minaev 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout24 Feb 2031
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Yefrem Zaytsev was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Luki-Energiya dressing room was either.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Luki-Energiya can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Volgar is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Ilja Salnikov 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.
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.
Squad17 Feb 2031
Roman Minaev 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.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Luki-Energiya can pretend not to have heard.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Luki-Energiya will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Luki-Energiya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Luki-Energiya have made the call to Leningradets. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Luki-Energiya will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 7.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.87, and 2 involvements.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Luki-Energiya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Luki-Energiya, and 2 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.