Narva Trans president blames former coach Kozhukhovsky for club's relegation

Narva Trans, a club in Estonia's top football division, has been relegated, and club president Nikolai Burdakov places the main blame on former head coach Roman Kozhukhovsky. The comments were reported on Saturday, 7 November, by the news programme Aktuaalne kaamera on the public broadcaster ETV+.

According to Burdakov, the coach failed to change the training process in time, even though he spoke with him several times. "This is the previous coach's fault. The lads do not want to speak openly about his approach to training. He had to take radical measures and bring something new into training, but that did not happen. I talked to him a lot, but unfortunately he did not listen," Burdakov said after the final match of the season.

Club player Iri noted that the team lacked productivity in attack: the players scored too few goals to count on more wins.

What comes next

Next season's squad will most likely be built from players who already have valid contracts, along with footballers from the youth team. Narva Trans still has a quarter-final of the Estonian Cup ahead.

The numbers after the coaching change

Kozhukhovsky left his post on 3 June. In 14 rounds under him, Narva Trans collected nine points out of a possible 42, or 21.4%. At the end of June the team was taken over by Spanish coach David Campana. In 18 rounds under him, the Narva side earned 13 points out of 54 possible, or 24.1%. During the transition period the team was led by Iri.

The share of points won under the Spanish coach was therefore slightly higher than under Kozhukhovsky. Overall, however, the figures for the 22 rounds since Kozhukhovsky's departure are practically the same as his own: 21.2% against 21.4%.