Marked for Brian Njeru
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Oct 2030
A row about effort at BKMA
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gor Arakelyan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 Oct 2030
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 David Kirakosyan is on it.
Market14 Oct 2030
The name of Narek Hovhannisyan keeps appearing in other people's back pages. BKMA say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Oct 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Dillon Hoogewerf commits to BKMA for another 4 years.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Yury Klochkov 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.
Market7 Oct 2030
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at BKMA, another week without a signature from Jamal Dibirgadjiev.
The dugout7 Oct 2030
Nobody at BKMA will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market7 Oct 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Reinis Reinholds’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad7 Oct 2030
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at BKMA that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout30 Sep 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” BKMA may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Tempers go at BKMA
Jamal Dibirgadjiev 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.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Words at BKMA training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gor Arakelyan 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
Transfer targets2 Sep 2030
BKMA and Urartu have settled on $93.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Boardroom2 Sep 2030
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 9 gone
That is the business done at BKMA until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad2 Sep 2030
Gor Arakelyan 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 targets2 Sep 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Urartu have kept their man, and BKMA go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Sep 2030
The medical room confirms 52 days on the sidelines for Petros Movsisyan, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Transfer targets2 Sep 2030
A loan enquiry to Van: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad2 Sep 2030
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.
The dugout2 Sep 2030
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 Reinis Reinholds is on it.
Market2 Sep 2030
BKMA and Bilal Şeflek are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Brian Njeru
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Boardroom
BKMA sign a deal worth $15.6K a year
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Squad
International call for Gor Arakelyan
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout6 May 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” BKMA may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings6 May 2030
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad6 May 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Argishti Petrosyan and BKMA agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings6 May 2030
Ninety minutes of Dillon Hoogewerf at his very best
Marked 8.46. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at BKMA.
Squad6 May 2030
Robert Darbinyan 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.
Squad6 May 2030
Tempers go at BKMA
Édson Magal 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.
Match6 May 2030
BKMA at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 6, 12 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Boardroom6 May 2030
Wages eat 100% of everything BKMA earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Market6 May 2030
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at BKMA, another week without a signature from Jamal Dibirgadjiev.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market28 Jan 2030
“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.
Transfer targets28 Jan 2030
BKMA asked and Alashkert said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Jan 2030
A row about effort at BKMA
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Kirakosyan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad28 Jan 2030
7 new faces, and BKMA 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.
The dugout28 Jan 2030
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 Alyosha Khachatryan is on it.
Squad28 Jan 2030
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. BKMA will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market28 Jan 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. BKMA know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout28 Jan 2030
Brian Njeru gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad28 Jan 2030
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at BKMA would admit. It shows on Saturdays.