Marked for Miroslav Tikhomirov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Mar 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Druzhba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad22 Mar 2027
The medical room confirms 14 days on the sidelines for Mads Abrahamsen, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Jordon Ibe 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.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
Wages eat 140% of everything Druzhba 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.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Jordon Ibe gets it from the manager
“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.
Market22 Mar 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Druzhba know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Druzhba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Tamerlan Khachirov 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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Azamat Kufanov
“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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
Jordon Ibe 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 Jordon Ibe trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Druzhba would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Dmitry Malakhov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jordon Ibe and Druzhba agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Druzhba
Ilja Petukhov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
Druzhba asked and Uralets-TS said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Jordon Ibe 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 targets8 Mar 2027
The clock did what Leningradets would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Market8 Mar 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
Belts tighten at Druzhba
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Druzhba boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match1 Mar 2027
Druzhba are in real trouble now
Position 12, 20 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
The terraces1 Mar 2027
Anger at Druzhba 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Druzhba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Druzhba 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vadim Kondrashov is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Druzhba
Jordon Ibe and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
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.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
Asker Delok gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ilya Lyubimov
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Druzhba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market22 Feb 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Druzhba can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
The offer went to Leningradets this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Eddi Tsanava 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Druzhba
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tamerlan Khachirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages swallow 153% of the Druzhba 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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Tyumen 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 targets22 Feb 2027
A loan move for Maxim Moskovets is in the works
Druzhba have made the call to Uralets-TS. 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
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alan Khapishtov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Druzhba
Ilja Petukhov 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jordon Ibe 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Miroslav Tikhomirov, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Druzhba
Something was said to Vadim Kondrashov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Spartak Nalchik in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Druzhba, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market12 Oct 2026
Druzhba have let the market know Renat Tlyashok can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.