It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Arsenal Tula will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ilja Moseichuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alexandr Putsko’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Arsenal Tula needing him to play as if none of it matters.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Arsenal Tula pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Arsenal Tula 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Mattéo Ahlinvi 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 5 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Arsenal Tula will try again when the window opens; Dinamo Kirov may not be selling by then.
In brief
Boardroom110% of the income goes out in wages at Arsenal Tula
Edarlyn Reyes has gone, the accounts have $3.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Arsenal Tula will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Caracas paid $3.5M and Arsenal Tula took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ural next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Caracas will make the call about Edarlyn Reyes this week. Arsenal Tula have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
242% of the income goes out in wages at Arsenal Tula
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Shinnik made Arsenal Tula work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erving Botaka-Yoboma 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Nikita Saltykov 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.
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.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
1 for Miloš Brnović, marked 7.83, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Ivan Gulko 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 3‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Arutyunov 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.
Leningradets go through and Arsenal Tula go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
342% of the income goes out in wages at Arsenal Tula
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erving Botaka-Yoboma 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Arsenal Tula dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Arsenal Tula told Alexandr Putsko something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Mattéo Ahlinvi 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.
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.
It needed Timur Melekestsev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Spartak Kostroma, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Artyom Skvortsov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Nobody at Arsenal Tula is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Arsenal Tula know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal Tula lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.76, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 11 gone
That is the business done at Arsenal Tula 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Arsenal Tula asked and Huracán said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal Tula lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arsenal Tula can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $89.0K — a club that wants Kurban Rasulov enough to be asked twice.
Arsenal Tula asked and Chaika said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Morelia will make the call about Edarlyn Reyes this week. Arsenal Tula have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Arsenal Tula had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shirak, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Arsenal Tula asked and Shirak said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erving Botaka-Yoboma 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.