Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladislav Kostin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nikolay Prisyazhnenko’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sokol needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Sokol close the window on a squad of their own making
20 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The deal that would have taken Vladislav Kostin to Chernomorets has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Sokol with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tom Bradshaw. 1‑0 against Chelyabinsk, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Kostin 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sokol can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Luki-Energiya for Vladislav Kostin 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.
Sokol had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Fortaleza CEIF, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Roman Pasevich 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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Allon Butaev has moved up it.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Sokol will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Chelyabinsk next, and one man in the Sokol dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Atletico Nacional keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The phone has started ringing about Vladislav Kostin again, and this time the name on the line is Zvezda. Sokol are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Sokol asked and Fortaleza CEIF said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
16 new faces, and Sokol 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vladimir Nikolayev after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutVladimir Azarov is still being punished for one mistake
Damián Kotrba 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.
“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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Vladimir Nikolayev to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Kostin 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Druzhba had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sokol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vladimir Nikolayev after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A loan enquiry to Fortaleza CEIF: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
A brace, and Tom Bradshaw takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tom Bradshaw provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deal with Dinamo Makhachkala is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Tom Bradshaw 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tom Bradshaw. 2‑1 against Torpedo Moscow, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nazar Korotkov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Makar Lukin has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Grigory Reshetnikov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Leonid Popov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Nikita Pechenkin 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Sokol go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Sokol will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.