The Astra Chronicle
Match16 Jan 2034
Astra sink to position 9
11 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market16 Jan 2034
Mykyta Kuralekh 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 Astra can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Jan 2034
Patrik Horváth: 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.” Astra have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad16 Jan 2034
Tempers go at Astra
Dorin Keseru 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.
Squad16 Jan 2034
Ovidiu Cicaldau 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.
Boardroom16 Jan 2034
Wages eat 112% of everything Astra 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.
In brief
- Squad Ianis Ratiu out for 26 days
- Market Boyd Beacroft leaves for nothing
- Market Florin Iancu leaves for nothing