The Astra Chronicle
Squad25 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Adrian Coman
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Astra lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market25 Jan 2027
Astra turn down FCSB for Bogdan Mitrita
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market25 Jan 2027
Business is business: Dorin Coman goes
FCSB paid $1.5M and Astra took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
FCSB tell Astra: Siyabonga Ngezana is not for sale
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Astra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roan Wilson 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Rareş Gal signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rareş Gal and Astra agree another 3 years.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A loan move for Pedro Pinho is in the works
Astra have made the call to Universitatea Craiova. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad25 Jan 2027
No place for Giorgos Charalampoglou in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Astra are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Bogdan Mitrita has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Astra 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.
In brief
- Market Marius Ratiu is free to find somewhere else
- Market The Cristian Moldovan question follows Astra around
- The dugout Cosmin Bancu knocks on the manager's door