Marked for Ivan Laptev
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Bryansk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom27 Sep 2027
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Dinamo Bryansk now.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match25 Sep 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergey Gribov. 1‑0 against Zenit Penza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Vladislav Drogunov 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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
A mark of 7.91, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Ivan Laptev 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 dugout27 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nikolay Tokarev, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match21 Aug 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market23 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match21 Aug 2027
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Vladislav Drogunov 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
“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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Nobody on the pitch touched Sergey Gribov
7.94, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Dinamo Bryansk had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nikolay Tokarev kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market8 Feb 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chelyabinsk waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Kirov is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Fedot Sazonov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market8 Feb 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Kalinov 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 dugout8 Feb 2027
Nikita Dorofeev without the man who signed him
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Nikita Dorofeev was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Bilal Akhjadov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Dinamo Kirov will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market8 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Bilal Bilalov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The table is being checked before the results are in, which is always the tell. Nobody at Dinamo Kirov says the word and every senior player in the building is thinking it.
Market8 Feb 2027
Dinamo Kirov have let the market know Evgeny Ignatovich can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Aug 2026
Spartak Tambov are out and Dinamo Kirov go through, 2‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kuban had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market24 Aug 2026
Ivan Laptev hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Evgeny Pesikov 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Roman Polkovnikov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match22 Aug 2026
Alania left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Andrey Savin
“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.