Yuriy Korotun: "We all have a desire to fight for the top spots"

Vice President of "Metalist 1925" Yuriy Korotun summed up the team's performance in the first part of the season, talked about the team's transfer plans for winter, and the fate of the match against "Veres" on "UPL TV":

- The day before, "Metalist 1925" finished the first part of the season with a match against "Obolon". It was the team's first hard-fought victory of the season. How was this victory, did you feel the tension of the match?

- Of course, there was tension, as we were losing in the first half. A man-to-man talk during the break worked, primarily from the head coach of the team, Mladen Bartulovich. By the way, I want to publicly apologize to "Obolon" for damaging the locker room doors. We will definitely compensate for the repairs, we take responsibility for it. Perhaps it was these doors that worked and helped us to come out more emotionally charged in the second half and win.

- Was this Mladen's initiative? Because he always seems restrained near the field. Did he finally snap?

- You know, both the whip and the gingerbread are needed.

- Did the club feel that there was a crisis in the team? If so, how did you deal with it?

- We analyzed the first part of the championship. We need to decompose, as we had subjective and objective reasons. Regarding the subjective ones, our failure against "Kudrivka", the defeat not by the game, in our opinion, in the match against "LNZ". Somewhere we didn't collect the points we wanted. And the objective reasons are what we faced at the beginning of the championship: two serious injuries to Hadzhiev and Moura, which posed a problem with the rotation of wingers. After that, Zabergja was also injured in the national team. Another objective reason is the adaptation of the legionnaires, which is faster for some and slower for others. It matters that Itodo and Zabergja did not attend the training camp with us. Also, we should not forget that we have six or seven players in the main squad - these are new people who are playing in this team for the first time. We also have a young coaching staff, so it is up to you as experts to decide which reasons: subjective or objective, have a greater impact on where we are in the standings. I will summarize it like this: if we are in 7th place, then we deserve it. Can we do more, do we want more? Yes, we want, we can, and we will try to do it in the second round.

- Are you satisfied with the coaching staff and the current result of "Metalist 1925"?

- This will be a continuation of the previous answer. Are we satisfied? No, we could have achieved better results. But due to the reasons I mentioned, I believe that this is an objective position in the standings, and we have the potential to improve it and try to play with all teams in the standings from a position of strength or at least on equal terms.

- What can we expect from the team in the winter transfer market?

- We have specific positions that we are working on. I think we should expect about four new players.

- The transition from the First League to the UPL is always difficult. Can this season be seen as laying the foundation for future seasons?

- Definitely. That's right. We talked about it before the start of the season, that our main goal is to build both the team, the collective, the atmosphere, and the club: infrastructure, organizationally, to have a club that can later compete for the highest awards. If we manage to qualify for European competitions this year, whether through the Ukrainian Cup or the championship, we all have the desire to fight for top positions.

- You had many injured players, young players made it to the squad. Maybe you can highlight someone and interesting foreign players are coming, tell us how the selection is built?

- The selection is handled by the sports director Mykola Shamardin. He has full authority to search for players throughout the club and President Bohdan Boyko. We have a full team of scouts and scouts here at the club, as well as scouts in Europe. We are also currently working on contacts in Latin America. They do not stop because we have a president who is a maximalist, he already wants transfers. They tell him to wait because the transfer window opens only on January 22. But he does not give up, I think we will see the results, I hope that their efforts and work 24/7 will not be in vain.

- Should we expect players like Ivan Kalyuzhny and Ilya Krupsky, who were already prestigious at the UPL level before moving to "Metalist 1925"?

- As it seems to me, there are not many Ukrainian players of that level available right now. But, in my opinion, we can strengthen more with foreign players, but we are looking, trying not to miss a quality player from the Ukrainian market.

- Alexander Yatsyk, Denis Marchenko, Alexander Saputin - they were linked to "Metalist 1925". Are you interested in these players now?

- Saputin and Marchenko - we confirmed that we were in negotiations in the summer, and regarding Saputin, maybe even in the winter of last year. As for Yatsyk, we have always liked this player, but as far as I know, he is unavailable.

- The main topic of the last week is the match between "Metalist 1925" and "Veres". At what stage is the consideration now, what has been reached or should be reached?

- I would not like to go through the KDK procedure now because it is not my prerogative to interpret how we defended our position. In my opinion, this should remain with the KDK, I do not have the authority for that. Our position remains unchanged: we are confident that we have done everything possible to hold this match. We provided all the documents to confirm this. As I said a week ago, we are confident that this game must be played. As far as I know, UAF is not against it, but it requires the consent of both parties. So far, I am unaware of the other party's consent.

- The final decision has not been made yet?

- The final decision from the KDK has not been made, it has been postponed for a week so that the KDK can familiarize themselves with all the documents submitted to the commission. We are ready and believe that we have provided a complete picture of what happened.