Marked for Makar Simakov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets14 Feb 2033
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Murom go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout14 Feb 2033
The manager makes an example of Evgeny Livadnov
“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.
Player ratings14 Feb 2033
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Feb 2033
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2033
Murom have made the call to Irkutsk. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2033
Lokomotiv Moscow 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.
The dugout14 Feb 2033
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Interim Coach chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout14 Feb 2033
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Murom told Makar Simakov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Match12 Feb 2033
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Yenisey 2 came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match30 Oct 2032
A 3-goal lead gone for Murom
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Luki-Energiya kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Murom will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings1 Nov 2032
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings1 Nov 2032
Adil Titi pops up at the right end — 7.20
7.20, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad1 Nov 2032
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Murom can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad1 Nov 2032
A falling-out at Murom
Grigory Kosenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Nov 2032
The decline has begun for Adil Titi
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Murom is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Boardroom1 Nov 2032
375% of the income goes out in wages at Murom
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Boardroom1 Nov 2032
Embargo at Murom
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Match30 Oct 2032
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Sep 2032
Murom up to position 2
16 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match18 Sep 2032
After 12 games, Murom finally taste it again
The first defeat in 12 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Dinamo Vologda; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Market20 Sep 2032
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Murom, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market20 Sep 2032
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Danil Barinov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market20 Sep 2032
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Prokhor Merzlyakov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market20 Sep 2032
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dmitriy Lysenko is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Match18 Sep 2032
Dinamo Vologda left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout20 Sep 2032
The manager makes an example of Savely Abramov
“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.
Squad20 Sep 2032
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Makar Simakov commits to Murom for another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom14 Jun 2032
The scrutiny sharpens at Murom
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Murom is running low.
Market14 Jun 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Ruslan Kukushbaev 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.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Words exchanged at Murom
Mikhail Mikaelyan 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.
Boardroom14 Jun 2032
Embargo at Murom
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Market14 Jun 2032
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Murom has been clear about where Mikhail Mikaelyan stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout14 Jun 2032
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad14 Jun 2032
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Murom will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout14 Jun 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Makar Simakov, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom21 Jul 2031
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Squad21 Jul 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Elmir Nabiullin
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Murom lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom21 Jul 2031
Murom have nobody left to take training
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Market21 Jul 2031
Yegor Ananjev 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 Murom can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom21 Jul 2031
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Boardroom21 Jul 2031
Graduation day at Murom
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Transfer targets21 Jul 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Murom go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jul 2031
A row about effort at Murom
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gadjimurad Abdullaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market21 Jul 2031
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Konstantin Pavlov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.