A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Neman will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Maxim Kravtsov 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Neman, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Neman 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neman will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neman they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Neman, and 2 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Teodor Ivanov 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Niva will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Dmitriy Sibilev 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.
18 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danil Ananka 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neman is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Neman is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Niva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Niva they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Danil Ananka 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neman they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marked 6.66 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“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 Neman, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Neman told Pavel Savitskiy something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Bumprom Gomel will replay every second of the added time for a week.
“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 Niva, and it is not being withdrawn.
7.61, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
7.17, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Nikita Karpuk 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Ilya Sedro 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Zaur Kasaev
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Anton Suchkov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Sadovnichiy 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.
Neman asked and Dinamo Bucharest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Dmitry Radikovskiy 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.
Niva asked and Astrakhan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 21 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.
The phone has started ringing about Egor Lunikhin again, and this time the name on the line is Bumprom Gomel. Niva are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Niva 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.
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.