Marked for Erbol Postnikov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
Rinat Beysebekov damages knee ligaments — 90 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Market5 Apr 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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.67, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Cássio Acosta is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Apr 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 Irtysh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Mar 2027
Rinat Beysebekov damages knee ligaments — 97 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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.
Squad29 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 Irtysh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match27 Mar 2027
A bad afternoon for Irtysh against Atyrau
0‑2 to Atyrau, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad29 Mar 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Nurali Postnikov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Irtysh will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Nurali Postnikov 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 Aug 2026
Baktiyor Murtazaev 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Ordabasy left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad3 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Irtysh know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aibol Tymoshchuk and Irtysh agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Timur Dosmagambetov has his answer from Irtysh; what he does with it is the next window’s story.