The Rotor Gazette
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Irakly Manelov was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 31. 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Arsenal Dzerzhinsk come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rotor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Nikita Chagrov stays put
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nikita Chagrov and Rotor agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Rotor
Irakly Manelov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad3 Aug 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Door shut on Stevie Bausor
Rotor asked and Leicester City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match1 Aug 2026
Rotor caught on 88 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Chernomorets scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Market3 Aug 2026
Nobody at Rotor has picked up the phone to Nikita Chagrov
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
8 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.
In brief
- Match Rotor and Chernomorets take a point apiece
- Market Still no ink between Rotor and Nikolay Pokidyshev
- The dugout The view from the dugout