Marked for Marius Novikovas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Utenis
Edvinas Slavickas 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Utenis offered $260.0K; Suduva said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Utenis asked and Suduva said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Justas Vaitkunas 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Utenis have made the call to Kauno Zalgiris. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Utenis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market28 Dec 2026
Ignas Kuklys 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 Utenis can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Marius Novikovas
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Utenis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Utenis
Tadas Simkus and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
Marius Novikovas damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Tadas Simkus in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utenis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Aidas Lasickas pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.