The words a physio says slowly. 119 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arsenal Tula will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Arsenal Tula can tell you which week it ends in.
In brief
SquadWords at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arsenal Tula lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arsenal Tula will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Arsenal Tula can tell you which week it ends in.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.25 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arsenal Tula will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Reziuan Mirzov provided it, and the 8.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
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.
A 2‑1 win over Volga, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
245% 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: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Razdorskikh 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 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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Igor Gorbunov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arsenal Tula.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Ivan Ignatjev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Popov 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.
Reziuan Mirzov 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.
“I watch every Arsenal Tula game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Chaika runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
8 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Maxim Maximov 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: Miloš Brnović. 1‑0 against Rotor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.40 — 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniil Penchikov 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arsenal Tula have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.87, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
“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.
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.
Maxim Maximov 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.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Artem Popov 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Popov 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Arsenal Tula has been clear about where Ilja Azyavin stands, which is more than many ever get.