Marked for Robert Mkhitaryan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Apr 2027
37 days out for Arman Adamyan after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. BKMA will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match31 Mar 2027
BKMA out of the cup
Gandzasar ended it 1‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market5 Apr 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 The request is on a desk at BKMA, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Ruben Abrahamyan: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BKMA have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match3 Apr 2027
4 matches without a win for BKMA
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around BKMA are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Apr 2027
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at BKMA
Argishti Petrosyan 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BKMA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Artur Askaryan 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Gor Arakelyan plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at BKMA
Argishti Petrosyan 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at BKMA training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artur Askaryan 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Sumgayit
Ronaldo Vásquez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Roi Kehat
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Match19 Sep 2026
Point won or two lost for Sumgayit?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Khazar? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Danylo Beskorovainyi is on it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
Zira next, and one man in the Sumgayit dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market21 Sep 2026
The Keffel talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sumgayit know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market24 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at BKMA
Argishti Petrosyan 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Hayk Khachatryan arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Hayk Khachatryan has, at BKMA, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brown Ideye 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 targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Alashkert have kept their man, and BKMA go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market24 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. BKMA have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
BKMA have made the call to Gandzasar. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Robert Mkhitaryan and BKMA agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Roi Kehat had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sumgayit can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Sumgayit
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aleksa Janković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bra have kept their man, and Sumgayit go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Sumgayit
Rachid Moumini 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Sumgayit have made the call to BKMA. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Qarabag will be the happier side with the point.