Marked for Samir Sheydaev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
Danila Yemeljanov 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.
Market5 Apr 2027
The name of Artem Gurenko keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Leningradets say nothing, which says plenty.
Loan watch5 Apr 2027
“Nobody here treats me like a loan player, and that is worth more than people think.” 24 appearances and 0 goals, and a summer that will decide it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match22 Mar 2027
Leningradets refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 32 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market22 Mar 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 Leningradets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Danila Yemeljanov 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.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
207% of the income goes out in wages at Leningradets
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Loan watch22 Mar 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Leningradets, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Market22 Mar 2027
Samir Sheydaev is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Mar 2027
Ravan sink to position 9
14 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market15 Mar 2027
Rufat Madatov 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 Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Mar 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 Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
22 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Afran Guseynov 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 Afran Guseynov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Ravan would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad14 Dec 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 Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.56, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Dec 2026
70 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Renat Ismayilov and Ravan agree another 4 years.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Dec 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ravan, another week without a signature from Orkhan Bayramov.
Squad14 Dec 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Afran Guseynov knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Ravan's wait for a win
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ravan has to find a result from somewhere.
Match23 Nov 2026
Ravan are in real trouble now
Position 10, 9 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match21 Nov 2026
A hiding for Ravan
Beaten 0‑3 by Zira, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Market23 Nov 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 Ravan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Nov 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 Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Artur Tishko gets it from the manager
“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.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Ravan 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.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Oct 2026
8 matches without a win for Ravan
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Ravan are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Tamkin Sheydaev: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ravan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market2 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
36 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad2 Nov 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 Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match31 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Bahlul Nadirov
“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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
85% of the income goes out in wages at Ravan
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Ravan's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ravan has to find a result from somewhere.
Market19 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Ravan
Orkhan Bayramov 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The medical room confirms 128 days on the sidelines for Javid Amirguliyev, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match17 Oct 2026
Qarabag left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Oct 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 5.45, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Market19 Oct 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Orkhan Bayramov signs something — a contract at Ravan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market21 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Ravan
Agil Nazarov 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.25 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The cruellest goal, and it is Samir Ismayilov's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Ravan will not try tonight.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad17 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market17 Aug 2026
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Agil Nazarov has come up in conversations Ravan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for Ravan, 2‑1 the final word against Qarabag in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.84, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.31, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Artur Tishko
“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.