A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sibir has been clear about where Konstantin Kotov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.7M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Nobody at Sibir 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sibir, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sibir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 6 on 21 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ramazan Ibragimov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sibir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.8M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Nobody at Sibir 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Sibir could ask drops and the wages Jacob Levy can ask rise.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sibir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
21 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Denis Kaikov on the training pitch
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Sibir can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Nikita Vorona 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 shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Stepan Yarygin is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sibir, another week without a signature from Jacob Levy.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sibir they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rhomani Murray trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sibir will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Nikita Vorona 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.9M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sibir, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Sibir will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sibir lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom1 Mar 2032
Sibir close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sibir is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sibir asked and Dinamo Bryansk said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sibir, another week without a signature from Artem Chudakov.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Daniil Petrunin is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sibir lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Yaroslav Tarasov 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 words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Nikita Vorona 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.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sibir has been clear about where Nikita Vorona stands, which is more than many ever get.
A month in which every rumour is possible and most of them are nonsense. The manager has a list, the board has a number, and neither is telling the other the whole of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sibir have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sibir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Sibir will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Sibir could ask drops and the wages Ramazan Ibragimov can ask rise.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sibir lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sibir have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Kaikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Daniil Petrunin is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sibir lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nikita Vorona 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikita Vorona trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
112 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sibir 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 Sibir, and it is not being withdrawn.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Jacob Levy 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 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sibir would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sibir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
6 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Sibir could ask drops and the wages Ramazan Ibragimov can ask rise.
126 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sibir lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nikita Vorona 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Arseny Vasilenko is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Sibir would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Konstantin Kotov 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 Edi Midžan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Two goals and a mark of 9.02 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacob Levy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
He is 23 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sibir can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacob Levy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Artem Chudakov
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Nikita Vorona
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Kaikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Jacob Levy 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sibir told Maxim Malafeev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
In brief
Looking aheadSibir take on the side everybody is chasing
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jacob Levy 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.5M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The dugout29 Sep 2031
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Konstantin Kotov
The dugoutIvan Churikov has become a man the manager trusts
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sibir can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Bryansk have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rhomani Murray 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
At 3 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Sibir found something the first half had given no notice of, and Mashuk could not hold what they had.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sibir they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings15 Sep 2031
Jacob Levy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
10.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Bryansk have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 16 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Sibir asked and SKA Khabarovsk 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 had been thinking. Jacob Levy 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 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.
1‑4 against Dinamo Moscow 2, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Kolomna go through and Sibir go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Position 9 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stanislav Bondarenko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Konstantin Kotov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sochi have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Jacob Levy 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.
“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 Aug 2031
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Interim Coach chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Luki-Energiya waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sibir is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sibir is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Klim Perekalskiy 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.
13 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
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.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Jacob Levy 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.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
16 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Alania were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Everything agreed with Textilschik, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Klim Perekalskiy 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.
7 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Sibir asked and Dinamo Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Kaikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nikita Vorona 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Amkar have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Jacob Levy 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stanislav Bondarenko, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Jul 2031
5 new faces, and Sibir 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“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 Sibir, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sibir they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Leon Aiba has agreed terms with KDV Tomsk for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Nikita Vorona 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 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. Torpedo Moscow have kept their man, and Sibir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Will Johnson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sibir the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sibir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Torpedo 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Nikita Vorona 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gavriil Nikolayev 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sibir are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Dinamo 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.