Alashkert 2026/27 Preview: the most settled side, a 14-goal Armenian, and the Coach of the Year
The 2026/27 Armenian Premier League season kicks off on July 31. In this preview series, we're taking a look at each club: breaking down last season's numbers, their playing style, the likely core of the squad, summer transfers, their title prospects, and Fantasy value.
Alashkert did a lot right, and it might still cost them a place. They finished fourth with the most settled team in the division, two double-figure scorers, a 24-year-old Armenian as the league's second-top scorer, and the manager the country had just voted its best. Then came the reward, European football, which is the very thing we think will let Urartu, four points back with a free week, slip past them.
Our prediction is 5th place. It is a one-place slip, and a close one. Alashkert had an excellent season; we just think two things off the table, the European calendar and a rebuilt defence, tip fourth back toward Urartu.
A settled fourth place
Vahe Gevorgyan's first season in charge produced fourth, 53 points, and a positive record against everyone below the top three.
They took care of the teams they had to. Fifteen matches against the bottom five brought twelve wins, two draws and 38 points from a possible 45—the single defeat a 0:1 at Gandzasar. That is 2.53 points per game, the floor of a genuine contender.
Against the three clubs that finished above them, it was harder.
The record against the top three was respectable. They beat Noah 2:0 and Ararat-Armenia 1:0 at home, just not often enough to climb. One result the table hides matters most here: against Urartu, the side directly below them, Alashkert took the season series 2–1 and six points from a possible nine. If fourth and fifth come down to those meetings again, that favours Alashkert.
The most settled team in the league
Most previews talk about a club's "core" and hope the numbers cooperate. Alashkert's actually do. No side in the division changed its team less.
They made fewer than two changes, on average, from one league match to the next. Arsen Beglaryan and Olawale Farayola started all 27 games, and the spine around them barely moved. That continuity is a big part of how a mid-budget squad finished fourth, and the best reason to think Gevorgyan can do it again.
They lined up as a 4-2-3-1 in most matches, and the personnel hardly changed: a back four, two holding midfielders, Karen Nalbandyan at the tip, and Momo Touré alone up front.
That settledness has a flip side, and Gevorgyan has raised it himself all season: the squad is thin. The same twenty players carried the league campaign because there was little proven depth behind them, and the drop from the first eleven to the bench is steep. In a normal domestic season that is workable. Asked to run a European campaign and a league campaign at once, through injuries and suspensions, thin depth is the likeliest thing to unpick their year.
Most-used XI
The most-used eleven shows that 4-2-3-1: Touré leading the line, Nalbandyan behind him, Farayola and Caio Henrique wide, Piloyan and Gareginyan in front of the back four.
The graphic comes with a caveat. Three of last season's most-used eleven have already gone: centre-back Klaidher Macedo left for Kazakhstan, holding midfielder Yuri Gareginyan retired, and Caio Henrique's loan ended. The core remains: Beglaryan, the full-backs, Piloyan, Farayola, Nalbandyan and Touré. What has weakened is the settled defence that earned those ten clean sheets, the part most in flux going into the new season.
Two engines, not one
Where several of last season's contenders leaned on a single scorer, Alashkert had two. Karen Nalbandyan scored 14 and Momo Touré 11, together nearly 60% of the club's league goals, but split between two players rather than piled onto one.
Both are young and both are efficient, at 0.68 and 0.67 goals-plus-assists per 90. The worry is the familiar one at Armenian clubs: after the top two, there is a drop. The next-highest returning scorer is Farayola, with three. So the attack is better balanced than a one-man side, but it still leans hard on two players, and one of them is the type that attracts bids.
Karen Nalbandyan: the league's best Armenian midfielder
Alashkert are not, in the way Urartu are, a club built on Armenian minutes. Armenians took 49% of their league minutes, squarely mid-table, and the squad leaned foreign, ten Armenians used against seventeen imports. What sets the club apart is that its best goalscorer is one of the Armenians.
A 24-year-old number ten, and Alashkert's captain, outscored every striker in the country bar one, at a club that otherwise buys its goals from abroad. His return per 90 is among the best of any midfielder in the league. Of the Armenians not already at a European regular, he is the one you would most want to see on a bigger stage, and keeping him is the most important thing Alashkert did this summer.
The Armenian presence is not only him. Beglaryan is a 32-year-old ever-present in goal, both first-choice full-backs (Arsen Sadoyan and Davit Terteryan) are Armenian, and 20-year-old Edgar Piloyan anchored the midfield across 25 starts. The spine is Armenian; the goals around Nalbandyan are mostly imported.
The Coach of the Year
Alashkert's best continuity argument is on the touchline. In December, Vahe Gevorgyan was voted Armenia's Coach of the Year for 2025.
Gevorgyan is young for a top-flight job here, and his line is upward: fifth with Van, then fourth and Europe with Alashkert. His sides play with midfield control and quick transitions, which fits the settled 4-2-3-1 above. The awkward part is that the prize for last season, continental football, is also the extra load we think will cost him a place this time.
Transfers: reinforced from above, rebuilt at the back
Alashkert's window is more coherent than most. Their two best additions are proven Armenian Premier League players poached from clubs that finished above them, not speculative imports.
From Pyunik · a proven league midfielder to replace Gareginyan
From Ararat-Armenia · experienced full-back, competition on the left
In for Macedo · has looked a strong defender early on
Free agent · promising attacker
From Gabala · pacey and dangerous winger
26 starts, 2,340 minutes · left for Kaysar Kyzylorda
19 starts in midfield · retired
15 starts, 3 goals · loan ended, returned to Brazil
Squad and fringe players moved on
Aghbalyan from Pyunik and Hakob Hakobyan from Ararat-Armenia are the kind of signings a club makes when it wants to stay where it is: ready-made league players taken from directly above. Cézar is a free agent with no prior Armenian top-flight football, but he has slotted straight in at centre-back and looked the part. The attack is further reinforced by two quality additions in Ejike and Massoumou, though they have yet to play a minute in the league.
The main question that could decide the season is about the back line. Losing a near ever-present centre-back is a real subtraction, even with Cézar settling in well beside his new partner. The pairing is young, and the defence that kept ten clean sheets is the part of the team still finding itself.
Europe is already under way
Fourth place brought a European spot, inherited when Noah won the cup while also finishing second. Alashkert's campaign has already started.
How that tie goes matters more than it looks. Win it and Alashkert climb into further qualifying rounds, stacking midweek European football on top of the opening league games. Lose it and Europe is over before the league even starts, and the fixture congestion we are about to lean on for our prediction disappears with it.
Prediction: 5th place
Alashkert finished four points above Urartu last season. We think that order reverses—narrowly.
The case for the slip is not that Alashkert got worse. It leans on one thing above all: the calendar, and that depends on Europe. If they get past Yelimay Semey they move into further qualifying rounds and carry midweek European football into the opening weeks of the league, and they would juggle it with the thin squad Gevorgyan has flagged all year. Urartu, four points back, begin with a free week. That is the same edge that shaped our Urartu prediction. Behind it sits a smaller worry: a back line still settling after Macedo.
We hold this one loosely, and it is worth saying why. Alashkert beat Urartu twice in three meetings last season. They kept their main attackers in Nalbandyan and Touré. They signed proven players from the clubs above them instead of gambling on unknowns, and they are the most settled side in the league under the reigning Coach of the Year. Every one of those points argues for staying fourth.
So the call is finely balanced, and it hinges on that European tie. We land on fifth because we expect Alashkert to keep winning qualifiers and to pay for it with tired legs and dropped points once the league starts. If they lose to Yelimay Semey and go out now, the fixture list clears, the argument falls away, and we would tip them straight back to fourth. Either way, it is a few points, no more, between these two clubs.
Fantasy: Nalbandyan first, then the value creator
Alashkert offer two premium attackers and one genuine value pick. After that, the picture is a defence in transition and a lot of unproven names.
2026/27 price list
Beglaryan5.5mChatunts4.0mSesay4.0mCézar6.0mSadoyan5.5mTerteryan5.5mMatyukhin5.0mH. Hakobyan4.5mR. Hakobyan4.5mGranado4.5mNalbandyan12.0mFarayola9.0mMassoumou8.5mE. Piloyan6.0mAghbalyan5.5mSabobo5.5mRafael Jesus5.0mNduka5.0mMomo Touré11.0mEjike7.0mBuhari4.5mKhalil4.5mNalbandyan is the one to own
Nalbandyan is classified as a midfielder, so his goals are worth five points rather than four, and he collects a point whenever Alashkert keep a clean sheet. A midfielder with 14 goals and 2 assists at 12.0m is the same premium tier as Urartu's Golden Boot winner, and for good reason: his 0.68 goals-plus-assists per 90 is elite for the position. As the club captain he is the first name on the teamsheet, and the obvious Fantasy armband too. The one caution is the same concentration risk that follows every star—when the goals dry up, there is not much behind him.
Touré as a premium forward
At 11.0m, Momo Touré is priced as a top striker, and 11 goals with 5 assists justifies it. He remains a key part of their attacking output and is a reliable source of goals.
Farayola is the value route
Olawale Farayola started all 27 league matches and supplied a squad-high seven assists. At 9.0m he is not cheap, but he is the way into Alashkert's attacking returns without paying the top two prices, and his minutes are as safe as anyone's at the club.
Handle the defence and the newcomers with care
Those ten clean sheets came from last season's back line, and it has changed. Cézar has started well, but his pairing is new, so the cheaper defenders are a guess until it settles; Beglaryan at 5.5m is the one nailed-on defensive pick. Be wary, too, of the priciest newcomers: Massoumou at 8.5m and Ejike at 7.0m sit above proven starters despite no top-flight minutes here. Watch them, do not buy them yet.
Our current three
The three-per-club limit is real here, and these are the three. That trio is attack-heavy, which suits Alashkert: the returns are up front, not in a back line that has to rebuild. If you would rather not stack all three, Nalbandyan is the one nobody should skip, and Farayola is a great budget route alongside the other two.
Bottom line
Alashkert earned fourth: the most settled side in the league, two double-figure scorers, the division's best Armenian attacker, and the Coach of the Year on the touchline. They beat Urartu twice, signed from the clubs above them, and kept their two most important players.
The reasons we still nudge them to fifth sit off the pitch, and they are contingent. If Alashkert keep advancing in Europe, they open the league with a fuller fixture list than Urartu, while the defence beds in a new centre-back pairing. If the defence settles quickly, this is a top-four squad again.
We are calling fifth on the assumption they stay in Europe and pay for it in the league, and because the gap to Urartu was only four. It is the closest call in the division, though. If they exit the qualifiers early, or a couple of results fall their way, Alashkert stay fourth.