Marked for Dmitriy Lukin
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Aug 2030
Marat Bogdaev 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 Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Match3 Aug 2030
No end in sight to Neftekhimik's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Neftekhimik has to find a result from somewhere.
Transfer targets5 Aug 2030
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Neftekhimik have done the hard part with Lokomotiv Moscow, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets5 Aug 2030
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ural is saying, and nobody at Neftekhimik is enjoying the guessing.
Squad5 Aug 2030
Andrey Nikitin 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.
Boardroom5 Aug 2030
$808.9K from the owner keeps Neftekhimik afloat
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Transfer targets5 Aug 2030
Neftekhimik asked and Dinamo Makhachkala said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings5 Aug 2030
Andrey Nikitin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
Squad5 Aug 2030
Dmitriy Lukin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Jul 2030
14 days out for Giorgi Kantaria after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Neftekhimik will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Neftekhimik
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Neftekhimik can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market8 Jul 2030
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets8 Jul 2030
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Andrey Nikitin 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.
Squad8 Jul 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sultan Djamilov and Neftekhimik agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom8 Jul 2030
$758.5K of the owner's money at Neftekhimik
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Jul 2030
A fracture rules Giorgi Kantaria out for 21 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftekhimik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market1 Jul 2030
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zenit keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad1 Jul 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Neftekhimik asked and Baltika said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom1 Jul 2030
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Squad1 Jul 2030
20 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marat Bogdaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Dinamo Makhachkala have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Jun 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market17 Jun 2030
“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.
Transfer targets17 Jun 2030
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Neftekhimik have done the hard part with Arsenal Tula, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Andrey Nikitin 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.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Qudus Olayiwola arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Qudus Olayiwola has, at Neftekhimik, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The dugout17 Jun 2030
The manager makes an example of Danil Polyakh
“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.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marat Bogdaev 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.
Transfer targets17 Jun 2030
Torpedo Moscow have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets17 Jun 2030
A loan move for Georgy Tuaev is in the works
Neftekhimik have made the call to Ufa. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 May 2030
A fracture rules Giorgi Kantaria out for 56 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftekhimik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market27 May 2030
“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.
Squad27 May 2030
Andrey Nikitin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 May 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marat Bogdaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout27 May 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marat Bogdaev, and the manager let it.
Boardroom27 May 2030
Wages swallow 109% of the Neftekhimik income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Market27 May 2030
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Neftekhimik money.
The dugout27 May 2030
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.
Market27 May 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Neftekhimik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 May 2030
A fracture rules Giorgi Kantaria out for 77 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftekhimik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom6 May 2030
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Neftekhimik can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom6 May 2030
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market6 May 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Artem Ismagilov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Neftekhimik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 May 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Giorgi Kantaria commits to Neftekhimik for another 2 years.
Squad6 May 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 May 2030
$870.4K of the owner's money at Neftekhimik
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.
Boardroom6 May 2030
No signings allowed at Neftekhimik
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.
Market6 May 2030
“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
Crisis
Squad25 Mar 2030
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Andrey Nikitin 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 terraces25 Mar 2030
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Adis Jasharovski has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Dmitriy Lukin pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathias Blårud 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 Mar 2030
7.69, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Neftekhimik had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match23 Mar 2030
A 1‑1 draw with Spartak Kostroma leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
Half-satisfied: Interim Coach on the draw
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
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
Crisis
Match23 Feb 2030
0‑3 to Ural, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Boardroom25 Feb 2030
Window shuts: 0 in, 0 out at Neftekhimik
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets25 Feb 2030
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Neftekhimik have done the hard part with Baltika, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad25 Feb 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Feb 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrey Nikitin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match23 Feb 2030
3 matches without a goal for Neftekhimik
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets25 Feb 2030
Neftekhimik asked and Sochi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Giorgi Kantaria, and the manager let it.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Dec 2029
There were 9 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.
Match8 Dec 2029
No end in sight to Neftekhimik's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Neftekhimik has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad10 Dec 2029
Giorgi Kantaria 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.
Squad10 Dec 2029
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Nikitin 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.
Boardroom10 Dec 2029
Wages eat 136% of everything Neftekhimik 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.
Player ratings10 Dec 2029
Marked 8.23 — 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.
Match8 Dec 2029
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Boardroom10 Dec 2029
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.
Squad10 Dec 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Neftekhimik know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Oct 2029
Dmitriy Lukin 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 Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Giorgi Kantaria 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.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrey Nikitin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Oct 2029
The manager makes an example of Iebe Swers
“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.
Boardroom15 Oct 2029
Wages swallow 124% of the Neftekhimik income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Boardroom15 Oct 2029
The Neftekhimik debt reaches $26.5M
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.
The dugout15 Oct 2029
Something was said to Artem Kotik and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad15 Oct 2029
5 new faces, and Neftekhimik are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout15 Oct 2029
Artem Kotik 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 Artem Kotik trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Sep 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Giorgi Kantaria 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.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Andrey Nikitin 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.
Transfer targets24 Sep 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nizhniy Novgorod have kept their man, and Neftekhimik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match22 Sep 2029
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kirill Kosarev. 1‑0 against Dinamo Moscow 2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Boardroom24 Sep 2029
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Iebe Swers reaches 100 appearances
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Market24 Sep 2029
Nikita Sergeev is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Neftekhimik has been clear about where Nikita Sergeev stands, which is more than many ever get.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces16 Apr 2029
Anger at Neftekhimik spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom16 Apr 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Neftekhimik
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market16 Apr 2029
“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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Andrey Nikitin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Dmitriy Lukin arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Dmitriy Lukin has, at Neftekhimik, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The dugout16 Apr 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Neftekhimik know it.
The dugout16 Apr 2029
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.