Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Makar Vysochenko 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 easiest signature of my career.” Marat Shayakhmetov and Spartak Moscow 2 agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 Spartak Moscow 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Timofey Rozhkov 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Yegor Guziev will call it something else in private.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Arseny Kondoyanidi scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Saturn, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad25 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Timofey Rozhkov'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.
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.
Zakhar Chushkin, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
1 for Yegor Guziev, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
1 for Yegor Guziev, marked 7.33, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.