Marked for Mikhail Zykov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Dnepr Mogilev
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market14 Feb 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Dnepr Mogilev, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Kirill Kirilenko 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Jan 2028
Naftan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dnepr Mogilev did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market31 Jan 2028
Mikhail Zykov 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 Dnepr Mogilev can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Kirill Kirilenko 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.
Boardroom31 Jan 2028
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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Fedor Yurkevich 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
7 new faces, and Dnepr Mogilev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Dec 2027
Mario Ramírez damages knee ligaments — 57 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
Market13 Dec 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dnepr Mogilev can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Kirill Kirilenko 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mario Ramírez
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dnepr Mogilev lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom6 Dec 2027
Vadzim Noyok has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Dnepr Mogilev can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom6 Dec 2027
The Dnepr Mogilev board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad6 Dec 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 Dnepr Mogilev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 Dec 2027
The owner puts $101.5K into Dnepr Mogilev
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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
The manager makes an example of Nikita Sednev
“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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
32 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Market6 Dec 2027
The clock runs on Nikita Sednev's contract
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Boardroom6 Dec 2027
Nobody arrives at Dnepr Mogilev until somebody leaves
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Dnepr Mogilev this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 Aug 2027
No end in sight to Cherepovets's wait for a win
15 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Cherepovets has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Dmitry Serebryakov damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
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.
Market30 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miron Belyaev 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Dmitry Serebryakov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market21 Sep 2026
Mikhail Zykov 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 Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patryk Nowakowski and Cherepovets agree another 4 years.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Patryk Nowakowski 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ivan Ovsyankin, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Aug 2026
1‑4 against Yenisey 2, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market17 Aug 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Daniyal Gadjiev delivers — 7.74
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Daniyal Gadjiev scored, was marked 7.74, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francisco Valenzuela and Cherepovets agree another 4 years.
Market17 Aug 2026
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Cherepovets have paid $16.0K for Ivan Ovsyankin, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dmitry Serebryakov 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Cherepovets dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.