The Rotor Gazette
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Irakly Manelov was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 31. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match6 Feb 2027
The wait goes on for Rotor
6 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.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Rotor make their move for Maxim Osipenko
$1.3M on the table at Dinamo Moscow. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Sergey Babkin due for a Rotor medical
Everything agreed with Lokomotiv Moscow, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Rotor
Nikita Chagrov 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.
Market8 Feb 2027
Business is business: Vladimir Sugrobov goes
Rodina paid $260.0K and Rotor took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Alexandr Troshechkin 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 Feb 2027
Rotor rebuffed over Andrey Ivlev
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Rotor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
No hiding place for Nikita Chagrov
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nikita Chagrov, and the manager let it.
In brief
- Market Rotor promote Aleksey Goncharov from within
- Market Gennady Dobrynin steps up from the Rotor academy
- Player ratings Abu-Said Eldarushev in the eights