Marked for Samat Postnikov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akzhaiyk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The medical room confirms 62 days on the sidelines for Khalid Shakhtiev, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Dmitriy Yelizarov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Market21 Dec 2026
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Market21 Dec 2026
At 36, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
Samat Postnikov damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Khalid Shakhtiev 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Roman Yemeljanov's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad14 Dec 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Akzhaiyk are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Samat Postnikov
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akzhaiyk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 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 Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Davron Zakirov and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The medical room confirms 30 days on the sidelines for Kairat Suyumbayev, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“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.
Market7 Dec 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Samat Postnikov
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akzhaiyk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Roman Yemeljanov 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
Timur Suyumbayev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Samat Postnikov
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akzhaiyk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Talğat Kusiapov 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.