Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
5 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Madiiar Mergenbaev and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Akzhaiyk, another week without a signature from Madiiar Mergenbaev.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Mansur Dil'murat and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Rinat Kuat 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dauren Taykenov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 19 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
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nnamdi Ahanonu 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The agreement at Okzhetpes has 39 days left in it, with 0 appearances to weigh. Three doors: keep him, sell him, lend him again — and none of them stays open long.
That is the business done at Akzhaiyk 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.
Nnamdi Ahanonu 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Nnamdi Ahanonu arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.