The Chaika Courier
Match16 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Chaika
13 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dmitri Volkov
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chaika lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market18 Jan 2027
Arseniy Timofeyev 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 Chaika can pretend not to have heard.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Stanislav Biblyk in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chaika this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Chaika training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Sokolov 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Chaika come up short against Rodina
Rodina left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The team sheet said everything about Paublo Jara
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Paublo Jara.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Nobody could get near Artem Sokolov
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market18 Jan 2027
A long bet from Chaika on Sergei Raspopin
He is 14, and nobody at Chaika signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
In brief
- Market Chaika buy the years ahead of Nil Shishkin
- Market Chaika sign Denis Moiseev, one for the future
- Loan watch The goals keep arriving from Arseny Filev’s exile