Marked for Kamran Bayramov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Mar 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Ilja Vinnikov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Salyut 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Mar 2029
Tristan Vella: 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.” Salyut have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Artem Tsygulev 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.
Boardroom12 Mar 2029
Salyut are $7.2M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Tempers go at Salyut
Kamran 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.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Nobody at Salyut 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.
Market12 Mar 2029
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vladislav Faskhutdinov signs something — a contract at Salyut or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Jan 2029
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Ivanteev 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.
Squad22 Jan 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2029
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match6 Jan 2029
5 matches without a win for Salyut
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Salyut are no longer polite ones.
Squad8 Jan 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Salyut may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad8 Jan 2029
24 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
$95.6K of the owner's money at Salyut
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Player ratings8 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
No signings allowed at Salyut
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Squad8 Jan 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Denis Gnedoy, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Match6 Jan 2029
Point won or two lost for Salyut?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Spartak Tambov? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Jan 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Salyut is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market1 Jan 2029
“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 Salyut, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Maxim Shabaidakov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match30 Dec 2028
4 matches without a win for Salyut
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Salyut are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Tempers go at Salyut
Victor Portillo 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.
Boardroom1 Jan 2029
131% of the income goes out in wages at Salyut
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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Andrey Ivanteev 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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
11 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Denis Gnedoy has given nobody the chance.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Dec 2028
Denis Gnedoy 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 Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces25 Dec 2028
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.27 on the card, and the Salyut support went home talking about one name.
Match23 Dec 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Ilja Vinnikov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Salyut 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.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Marked 5.44. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Dec 2028
Kamran Bayramov: 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.” Salyut have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad11 Dec 2028
The medical room confirms 53 days on the sidelines for Vladislav Faskhutdinov, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad11 Dec 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 Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
Marked 8.55 — 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.
Boardroom11 Dec 2028
No signings allowed at Salyut
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Squad11 Dec 2028
“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 ratings11 Dec 2028
Sergey Gaiduk was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match9 Dec 2028
The goal that put Dinamo Bryansk ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Salyut equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Match9 Dec 2028
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Aug 2028
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match26 Aug 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Vladislav Faskhutdinov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Salyut.
Squad28 Aug 2028
“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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Yegor Tinyakov 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.
Boardroom28 Aug 2028
The Salyut debt reaches $6.3M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad28 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 Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match16 Aug 2028
Salyut bow out of the cup
Strogino go through and Salyut go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces21 Aug 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 9 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market21 Aug 2028
Tristan Vella 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 Salyut can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
A first appearance Kamran Bayramov will want to forget — 5.77
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.77, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Stanislav Bukatov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market21 Aug 2028
Add another name to the list: Zvezda have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Maxim Shabaidakov. The answer from Salyut has not changed — yet.
Squad21 Aug 2028
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Artem Tsygulev 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.
Match19 Aug 2028
It finished 2‑1, and it was Victor Portillo’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Salyut.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Andrey Ivanteev out for 43 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Salyut will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market6 Mar 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Salyut is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Dmitry Belov: 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.” Salyut have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandr Krikunenko and Salyut agree another 4 years.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
The owner puts $11.7K into Salyut
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Salyut cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Jan 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match17 Jan 2028
Salyut are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 52 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Squad17 Jan 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 Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jan 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 Nov 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 Salyut can pretend not to have heard.
Match27 Nov 2027
Still nobody has beaten Salyut
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Boardroom29 Nov 2027
Wages eat 245% of everything Salyut earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lautaro Moyano, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Nov 2027
10 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
A defender's afternoon for Ilja Vinnikov
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Salyut are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Match27 Nov 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Zenit Penza defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces4 Oct 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 24 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market4 Oct 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.
Match2 Oct 2027
Znamya Truda left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Tsygulev 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.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
222% of the income goes out in wages at Salyut
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.
Squad4 Oct 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 Salyut this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ilja Vinnikov, and the manager let it.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
The Salyut debt reaches $4.2M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.