Marked for Maxim Khramtsov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Rotor
Nikita Chagrov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Rotor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Artem Simonyan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets7 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
10 new faces, and Rotor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Rotor have made the call to Partizan. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
7.37, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Rotor had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ilja Safronov
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ilja Safronov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Rotor have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match22 Aug 2026
Rotor taken apart
0‑3 to Shinnik, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with All Boys, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Artem Simonyan 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 targets24 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Doors closed at Rotor
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Panathinaikos 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Rotor 2 say no — this time
The offer from Nart for Nikita Plotnikov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Rotor 2
Adrian Platon and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for Rotor 2, 1‑0 the final word against Kvant in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Evgeny Ostrovsky, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Maxim Maltsev knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rotor 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.