Marked for Robert Cunningham
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match22 Nov 2045
Rostov ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad27 Nov 2045
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings27 Nov 2045
A defender's goal wins it for Textilschik — 7.52
1 for Yegor Kalinin, marked 7.52, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad27 Nov 2045
Words at Textilschik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Víctor Guerrero 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.
Player ratings27 Nov 2045
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Boardroom27 Nov 2045
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Jul 2045
Miguel Suárez damages knee ligaments — 60 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 60 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad31 Jul 2045
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad31 Jul 2045
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Textilschik have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match29 Jul 2045
Whatever happens, Textilschik do not lose
9 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad31 Jul 2045
Víctor Guerrero 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.
Match29 Jul 2045
Three points for Textilschik, 1‑0 the final word against Alania in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom31 Jul 2045
No signings allowed at Textilschik
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Player ratings31 Jul 2045
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings31 Jul 2045
14 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Jul 2045
Miguel Suárez damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad24 Jul 2045
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market24 Jul 2045
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Textilschik can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Jul 2045
Still nobody has beaten Textilschik
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Boardroom24 Jul 2045
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Maksim Mironov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Textilschik have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad24 Jul 2045
Words at Textilschik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Víctor Guerrero 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.
Match22 Jul 2045
Textilschik make home a hard place to visit
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Boardroom24 Jul 2045
133% of the income goes out in wages at Textilschik
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.
Player ratings24 Jul 2045
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.