Marked for Danil Baklanov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
The knee: Timur Ganiev out for 14 days
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotiv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Krasnodar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Lokomotiv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Spas Georgiev wants to finish where he started
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Lokomotiv now know that too.
Market15 Feb 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotiv know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Christopher Acheampong is on it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Lokomotiv know which stage they are at.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom16 Nov 2026
The season a town measures the next twenty against. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Squad16 Nov 2026
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Lokomotiv will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Aleksandar Šušnjar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Alexey Kozlov'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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Abror Sarimsoqov out for 28 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiv will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 22 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Oleksandr Kucherenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lokomotiv know it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Muhammedali Reimov'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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
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.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Nasaf next, and one man in the Lokomotiv dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lokomotiv. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Spas Georgiev knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Spas Georgiev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Lokomotiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Lokomotiv 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Lokomotiv have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Vladimir Petrović 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Suhrob Nurulloev is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Lokomotiv
21 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Muhammedali Reimov 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.