The offer from Spartak Moscow for Miloš Brnović 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 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.
$260.0K was the most the club would pay and Volgar 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.
Arsenal Tula asked and Volgar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 The request is on a desk at Arsenal Tula, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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 phone has started ringing about Artem Arutyunov again, and this time the name on the line is Sokol. Arsenal Tula are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
8 goals in one match, Jonathan Dellarossa on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Arsenal Tula and Neftekhimik.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ilja Gaponov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The name of Timur Melekestsev has come up in conversations Arsenal Tula were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Position 2, 65 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 15 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The offer from Navbahor for Edarlyn Reyes 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.
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilja Gaponov 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 is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 12 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Arsenal Tula can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
12 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.
61 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“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.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
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.
11 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Marked 8.28 — 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.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexey Vakulich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arsenal Tula the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Makar Efimov 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jonathan Dellarossa. 2‑1 against Shinnik, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 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.
“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 Arsenal Tula, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
229% 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Miloš Brnović at his very best
7 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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Arsenal Tula and SKA Khabarovsk in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonathan Dellarossa provided it, and the 9.02 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arsenal Tula they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jonathan Dellarossa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ilja Gaponov 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.
Match14 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Arsenal Tula. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yefrem Borodin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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 hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ruslan Bart did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Arsenal Tula are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
229% 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Arsenal Tula scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonathan Dellarossa provided it, and the 9.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.48, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Ruslan Bart, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.13
A mark of 8.13 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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 4‑2, and it was Edarlyn Reyes’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arsenal Tula.
Squad26 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arsenal Tula is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 20 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.
“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.
“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.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vladislav Pyankov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ivan Protasov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
KAMAZ left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Markelov 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ruslan Bart did not need any: 8.03, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped 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.
11 goals and a season average of 7.26 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Edarlyn Reyes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Paulo Renê 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.
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Arsenal Tula had all but put away. Neftekhimik will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 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.
8 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.
Spartak Kostroma will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Arsenal Tula were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexey Vakulich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arsenal Tula the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 9.73 — 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.
Arsenal Tula offered $50.0K; Dinamo Moscow said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Arsenal Tula asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Markelov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Edarlyn Reyes at his very best
7 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 24 signed and 9 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.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
$50.0K on the table at Dinamo Moscow. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonathan Dellarossa provided it, and the 9.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Jonathan Dellarossa 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Quilmes 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.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Miloš Brnović 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.
8.18. 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ivan Markelov 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.
The offer from Nizhniy Novgorod for Edarlyn Reyes 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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arsenal Tula they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The offer went to Lokomotiv Moscow this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
$880.0K was the most the club would pay and Orenburg 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.
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.
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.
Arsenal Tula asked and AEK 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 offer from Javor-Matis for Timur Melekestsev 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ilja Gaponov is living that version at Arsenal Tula, and it tends to show in the first month.
Arsenal Tula offered $1.2M; Akron said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
3 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.
Igor Gorbunov 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.
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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Ilja Gruznov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Arsenal Tula have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Stepan Oganesyan is living that version at Arsenal Tula, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Astana have kept their man, and Arsenal Tula go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Astra is saying, and nobody at Arsenal Tula is enjoying the guessing.
Miloš Brnović 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Anton Karpov 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Evgeniy Laptev 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vadim Putin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Arsenal Tula have gone to Central Espanol with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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.
Marked 9.58 — 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Igor Gorbunov. 3‑2 against Volga, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.