Daniil Kulikov 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Pyunik 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.
Nobody at Pyunik 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.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Daniil Kulikov 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 manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mikhail Kovalenko is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pyunik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Arman Nersesyan 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Hakob Grigoryan has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aram Movsisyan has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Nobody at Pyunik 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 asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Ambitious players need ambitious projects. Draw your own conclusions.” Erik Simonyan’s representative said it with a smile, and made sure everyone wrote it down.
Pyunik close the window on a squad of their own making
20 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Almirante Brown is saying, and nobody at Pyunik is enjoying the guessing.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Pyunik know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. James is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Marius Noubissi obliged against Urartu. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Pyunik.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pyunik have done the hard part with Almirante Brown, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Arman Nersesyan is a Pyunik player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Prince Ukachukwu 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.
9 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Karen Ghazaryan could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutMarius Noubissi has become a man the manager trusts
Player ratingsThe afternoon ran through Momo Yansané
Successful dribbles: 26. 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Palermo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
$330.0K on the table at Ararat-Armenia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The name of Sead Islamović has come up in conversations Pyunik were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Mineiro have kept their man, and Pyunik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Prince Ukachukwu 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.
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.
Pyunik asked and Alashkert said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pyunik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A loan enquiry to Deportivo La Guaira: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Pyunik will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pyunik would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Pyunik have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Prince Ukachukwu arrives at Pyunik with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Pyunik have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Ararat-Armenia for Filipe Almeida 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.
The offer went to Alashkert 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Seryozha Urushanyan is living that version at Pyunik, and it tends to show in the first month.
Daniil Kulikov 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ararat Karapetyan 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. Hakob Grigoryan 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Pyunik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sead Islamović 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.
Pyunik asked and Patronato said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Still no offer on the table, and Hovhannes Harutyunyan’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.