Marked for Yegor Golenkov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Anton Zabolotny takes the afternoon — 9.04
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anton Zabolotny provided it, and the 9.04 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market14 Sep 2026
BATE come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rostov did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ronaldo runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 10 in, 5 out at Rostov
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Konstantin Kuchaev and Rostov agree another 3 years.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Victor Melekhin 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
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Squad
Tempers go at Rostov
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Squad
Timur Aduev out for 14 days
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
Oumar Sako 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 Rostov can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
The name of Yegor Golenkov has come up in conversations Rostov were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Victor Melekhin 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 targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Akron have kept their man, and Rostov go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ronaldo may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Rustam Khalnazarov has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rostov, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Ronaldo puts it in writing
“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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Rostov
Uroš Drezgić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match29 Aug 2026
Honours even between Rostov and Akhmat
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Makar Smolnikov after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad31 Aug 2026
No place for Maxim Boldyrev in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Rostov are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.