The words a physio says slowly. 62 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
4 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.
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.
At 21 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.
A 2‑0 win over Rodina, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Igor Gorbunov 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.
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.
Pedro Ribeiro 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 team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Sochi.
Nobody at Arsenal Tula 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sochi in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erving Botaka-Yoboma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The dugout30 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Anatoly Yashin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Arsenal Tula dressing room was either.
Something was said to David Kobesov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Arsenal Tula 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.
Dinamo Bryansk go through and Arsenal Tula go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matvey Martinkevich provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
10 matches without a win, and then this, against Spartak Kostroma. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
“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.
“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 Arsenal Tula know it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erving Botaka-Yoboma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
9.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Igor Gorbunov and Arsenal Tula agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Oct 2028
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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erving Botaka-Yoboma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and Arsenal Tula go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.66, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alan Tsaraev, and the manager let it.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleg Isaenko 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Timur Melekestsev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The offer from Dinamo Moscow for Luka Marić 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.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ilja Sokolov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shinnik have kept their man, and Arsenal Tula go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Arsenal Tula people have started saying his name in the past tense.
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.
9 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Arsenal Tula is running low.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Arsenal Tula, and 5 appearances in 20 say he has earned the hearing.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Yaroslav Demchenko has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Karmaev 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.
“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.
1 for Miloš Brnović, marked 6.10, 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.
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.
13 combined actions and 6.96. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Miloš Brnović’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arsenal Tula.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emir Faccioli 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 94% of everything Arsenal Tula earn
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ilja Sokolov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arsenal Tula the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Martín Pino. 2‑0 against Tyumen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.41 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emir Faccioli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Anatoly Yashin, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.