Marked for Maksym Solomakha
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Jul 2029
Anton Zadereiko damages knee ligaments — 94 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Market9 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Inhulets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Karpaty is saying, and nobody at Inhulets is enjoying the guessing.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Words exchanged at Inhulets
Vitalii Dubilei 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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
At 21 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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
At 29 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
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.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Botosani 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.
The dugout9 Jul 2029
The manager makes an example of Nikos Vlioras
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Aug 2028
Dmytro Panchenko damages knee ligaments — 51 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
Market7 Aug 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Inhulets can pretend not to have heard.
Match5 Aug 2028
The run is over for Inhulets
9 matches without defeat, and then Obolon. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad7 Aug 2028
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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Illia Ukhan and Inhulets agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inhulets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
Inhulets asked and Metalist said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match5 Aug 2028
A bad afternoon for Inhulets against Obolon
1‑2 to Obolon, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings7 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dmytro Panchenko
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Inhulets lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inhulets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
Inhulets asked and Metalist said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
AZ 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.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
Artem Benediuk asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market10 Jul 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Serhii Kyslenko signs something — a contract at Inhulets or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
The manager makes an example of Oliver Obel
“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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
A season on the outside for Oliver Obel
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Inhulets has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Market10 Jul 2028
“Ambitious players need ambitious projects. Draw your own conclusions.” Nazar Prykhodko’s representative said it with a smile, and made sure everyone wrote it down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dmytro Panchenko
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Inhulets lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market3 Jul 2028
“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.
Match3 Jul 2028
Inhulets are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 53 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market3 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nazar Prykhodko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inhulets the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market3 Jul 2028
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Vitalii Dubilei 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Maksym Solomakha arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Maksym Solomakha has, at Inhulets, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Inhulets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bohdan Mohylnyi 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.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
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.