Marked for Grigory Lovtsov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jul 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Alashkert have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Match12 Jul 2027
Alashkert refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 38 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market12 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market12 Jul 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Alashkert, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Jul 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Alashkert heard it as anything else.
Squad12 Jul 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 Alashkert this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jul 2027
A row about effort at Alashkert
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Klaidher was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Central Norte have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Alashkert told Pedro Henrique something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Feb 2027
Karen Nalbandyan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Alashkert
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaroslav Matyukhin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Alashkert would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Yakubu Abbas knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yakubu Abbas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market22 Feb 2027
Alashkert have made Grigory Lovtsov available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Market22 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Kajally Drammeh’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Alashkert lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Shirak waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Alashkert is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market11 Jan 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
Alashkert say no — this time
The offer from Bunyodkor for Malik Odeyinka 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Everything agreed with Noah, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Karen Nalbandyan 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Artak Bayramyan 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Alashkert training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Matyukhin 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Alashkert lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The deal with Pyunik 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Malik Odeyinka has come up in conversations Alashkert were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 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 Alashkert this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Alashkert know it.
Transfer targets4 Jan 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Yaroslav Matyukhin 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 targets4 Jan 2027
A loan move for Clinton Dombila is in the works
Alashkert have made the call to Noah. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market4 Jan 2027
Shirak are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Alashkert will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.