Marked for Selim Dilli
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Aug 2027
Serikspor say no — this time
The offer from Kayserispor for Lev Skvortsov 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Serikspor can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Aug 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Serikspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Lev Skvortsov 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Rhaldney 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 dugout9 Aug 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Selim Dilli and Serikspor agree another 3 years.
Market9 Aug 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market2 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Serikspor can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The Serikspor board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market2 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Serikspor people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market2 Aug 2027
The name of Alexandr Martynov has come up in conversations Serikspor were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad2 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Serikspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Serikspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tokinho Dória 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Selim Dilli and Serikspor agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Feb 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match6 Feb 2027
7 matches without a win for Serikspor
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Serikspor are no longer polite ones.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Serikspor may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Rhaldney 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 targets8 Feb 2027
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.
Match6 Feb 2027
0‑1 to Bodrum FK, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Ahmed Kutucu beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Wages swallow 116% of the Serikspor income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match16 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Serikspor
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match16 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Serikspor
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tokinho Dória and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Serikspor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rhaldney was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match16 Jan 2027
3 matches without a goal for Serikspor
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fenerbahce have kept their man, and Serikspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Serikspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A defender's afternoon for Selim Dilli
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
Serikspor say no — this time
The offer from Fatih Karagumruk for Raymond Adeola 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alexandr Martynov is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market11 Jan 2027
Rhaldney has his eye on Europe
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Serikspor can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Match9 Jan 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Serikspor did not have in the autumn.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Serikspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Serikspor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rhaldney was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Antalyaspor have kept their man, and Serikspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Caner Cavlan is not the player he was
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Match11 Jan 2027
Serikspor at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 13, 22 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
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Market
The Cengiz Demir conversation is coming
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Selim Dilli gets it from the manager