Marked for Talgat Tymoshchuk
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Sep 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Shakhter may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market9 Sep 2030
Tair Nurseitov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shakhter they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Sep 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Arman Nusip and Shakhter agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Words at Shakhter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamshid Boltaboev 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.
Squad9 Sep 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market9 Sep 2030
The name of Talgat Tymoshchuk keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Shakhter say nothing, which says plenty.
In brief
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Market
The window shut and Tair Nurseitov is still in the building
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Boardroom
The Shakhter production line keeps running
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings29 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market29 Apr 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Älikhan Israilov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shakhter the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Andrei Vlad 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.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Aleksandr Shirobokov 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 terraces29 Apr 2030
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Azamat Tuiakbaev has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match27 Apr 2030
A 2‑0 win over Okzhetpes, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings29 Apr 2030
Marked 7.86 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Shakhter had the best player on the pitch.
Squad29 Apr 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad29 Apr 2030
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Apr 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jamshid Boltaboev
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Shakhter lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market8 Apr 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shakhter they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Andrei Vlad 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 Shakhter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Words at Shakhter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandr Shirobokov 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.
Squad8 Apr 2030
The young player of the month award goes to a 17-year-old at Shakhter who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.