“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dijon had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Astra can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Astra until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Astra had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Levski, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Cristian Iancu has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Cristian Puscas is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Slaven Belupo had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer from Slaven Belupo for Cristian Moldovan was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Chigozie Ihejiofor has just signed for Astra, and for once the answer mattered.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Astra have done the hard part with Levski, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Riad Šuta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Player ratingsVlad Mitrita was on a different afternoon to everybody else
$1.9M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
He is going to Dinamo Bucharest, the club has $1.9M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Astra offered $2.3M; Dinamo Bucharest said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Astra have gone to CFR Cluj with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Sparta Prague arrived with $15.0M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Isloch had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Dragos Nedelcearu has gone, the accounts have $15.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Botosani did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $560.0K for Riad Šuta, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The deal with FCSB is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Astra had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Ludogorets, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The terracesThe town asked, and Astra paid $560.0K
SquadClaudiu Hagi falls out with a teammate over standards
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Cristian Puscas provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The phone has started ringing about Dragos Nedelcearu again, and this time the name on the line is Sparta Prague. Astra are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Astra have gone to Botosani with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.