0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
$620.0K was the most the club would pay and Urartu were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Karen Nalbandyan 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.
Alashkert asked and Ajax said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Khalil Sammani has come up in conversations Alashkert were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Benjamín González provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer from Poltava for Malik Odeyinka 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.
$620.0K on the table at Urartu. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Karen Nalbandyan 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.
Alashkert asked and Urartu said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kajally Drammeh has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Alashkert training over how hard people work
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alashkert this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Rimal Haxhiu is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kajally Drammeh had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer from Ararat for Joseph Sabobo 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.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Patronato keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Karen Nalbandyan 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nacional have kept their man, and Alashkert go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vahan Hakobyan has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Alashkert asked and Quilmes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The phone has started ringing about Kajally Drammeh again, and this time the name on the line is Neman. Alashkert are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Alashkert training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hakob Hakobyan 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Karen Nalbandyan’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Patronato have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Alashkert 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.