Pyunik 2026/27 Preview: Armenia’s best defence, but where will the goals come from?
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.
Pyunik finished third last season. We expect them to finish third again this year—but the journey there will likely look very different.
Armenia's tightest defence
Let's start with a stat that often goes unnoticed. Pyunik conceded just 18 goals in 27 matches. That’s fewer than Noah, fewer than the champions—fewer than anyone else in the league.
Now compare that to the teams above them. Pyunik won 17 league matches, while Noah, who finished second, won 16. Ararat-Armenia won 18 and took the title.
Despite winning more games and conceding fewer goals than the runners-up, Pyunik still finished a spot and four points behind them. The reason lies at the other end of the pitch. They scored 37 goals; Noah scored 61.
No team in Armenia turned goals into points as efficiently as Pyunik. Each of their goals was worth 1.49 points, compared to just 0.92 for Noah. That isn't exactly a compliment to Pyunik's forwards—it's simply the hallmark of a team that didn't need to score much to win.
The 1-0 specialists
Their season was defined by narrow, tightly controlled wins. Ten of their 17 victories came by a single-goal margin, and five of those were 1:0.
Two things stand out from that chart. The first is just how pragmatic their campaign was: Pyunik scored one goal or fewer in 15 of their 27 matches—more than half the season—and still managed to finish third. Their biggest win was a 5:1 thrashing of Van. Take away that single game, and they scored just 32 goals in 26 matches.
The second is that they were never really dismantled by any opponent. Their heaviest defeat all season was by a mere two goals. Noah, who boasted the best goal difference in the division, won nine matches by three or more goals. Pyunik only did that twice.
This is a team explicitly built to minimize risks.
The Oseyan impact
None of this was the plan when the season began.
On 6 August 2025, Yeghishe Melikyan left Pyunik to take charge of the Armenia national team, replacing John van 't Schip. Melikyan had won the club two championships, in 2021/22 and 2023/24, and there was a widespread feeling that it was simply his time to take the helm of the national team. Artak Oseyan was appointed six days later, on 12 August, with the league already underway.
He took over the reins in round three. Everything that followed is a testament to his work.
Thirteen clean sheets in twenty-five matches, conceding a goal roughly every 132 minutes. Over a full campaign, his points-per-game average translates to about 55 points—which is exactly what Pyunik ended up with.
There's no great secret to their football. Pyunik defend deep and in numbers, keeping the game at 0:0 or 1:0 for as long as possible, and usually win through a single decisive moment rather than sustained attacking pressure. It might not be glamorous, but it is highly cohesive. It suits the squad perfectly, and last season it proved more effective than anything else outside of the two heavily resourced title contenders.
The clearest proof of this system's strength is what they did against the best attack in the country.
Two clean sheets against Noah
Noah scored 61 goals last season, eleven more than anyone else, and failed to score in only six of their 27 matches. Pyunik were responsible for two of them.
Beaten 3:1 in September, Oseyan's side went back to Abovyan in May and came away with a goalless draw, then did the same thing at home three weeks later. Two 0:0s against a team that was scoring 2.4 goals a game against everyone else in the league.
Pyunik also beat the eventual champions 1:0, and they beat Alashkert — who finished fourth, one point behind them — in all three meetings. Against the top five they took 18 points from 12 matches. Against everybody else they took 37 from 15, conceding seven goals in the process.
They were, quite literally, incredibly difficult to beat.
And then the summer transfer window opened
Look at the top line for a second. Javi Moreno started all 27 league matches—the only Pyunik player to do so. He clocked 2,267 league minutes, more than any other outfielder at the club, and has now left for Real Murcia on a free transfer.
The entire attacking unit around him has essentially been dismantled. Noubissi, the club's joint top scorer with seven goals, has left. Ocansey, who made 22 starts playing off the striker, has also departed. The right-back who played 1,512 minutes? Gone. A centre-back who started fifteen times? Also moved on.
Pyunik have lost the players responsible for 46% of their goals, from a team that was already the lowest-scoring among the top contenders. That is the single most crucial takeaway from this preview.
The defence remains intact
The good news is that the part of Pyunik that was genuinely elite has mostly stayed.
Henri Avagyan started 26 of the 27 league matches and kept 13 clean sheets. He is Armenia's first-choice goalkeeper, and in January he signed a contract through to 2029. At 30, behind the meanest defence in the country and with no rotation to worry about, he is about as reliable as anything in Armenian football.
In front of him, Vakulenko and Filipe Almeida started twenty matches each, and that centre-back pairing is intact. Between them they were on the pitch for the great majority of the fourteen clean sheets.
The full-back positions look a bit thinner. Alemão, who made seventeen starts at right-back, is gone. Mikhail Kovalenko remains the established senior full-back on the left, while Gonçalo Miguel (on loan from Ural) and Robert Darbinyan are the options on the right. It’s a functional group rather than a firmly settled one, and it's the area of the defence most likely to be tested this season.
Rebuilding the midfield
Two players have come home from Noah, and this is the story Pyunik supporters care about most.
Artak Dashyan and Hovhannes Harutyunyan were both central to the side that won the 2023/24 title. Both then moved to Noah, and both were quietly buried there.
It’s easy to look at this window and assume Dashyan is a new arrival, but he actually returned in January. He already has half a season under Oseyan under his belt, including seven league starts. Harutyunyan is the genuinely new addition here, having signed on July 1.
Both were being wasted at Noah. Between them they made nine league starts all season, at a club that changed its team every single week. Dashyan, a two-time champion with Pyunik, spent eleven of Noah's first twelve rounds on the bench. Whatever else this summer has cost Pyunik, getting those two back into a team that actually wants them is a straightforward gain.
Alongside them is Karlen Hovhannisyan, and he may be the most interesting player at the club. He is 21, he started 18 league matches last season, and he already has three senior Armenia caps. He also scored against Noah in the Armenian Cup quarter-final, in first-half stoppage time — a tie Pyunik lost 4:3 on aggregate to the side that went on to win the trophy.
That cup goal is worth dwelling on, because the league record does not tell the same story. Across 1,588 league minutes last season Hovhannisyan did not score and did not register an assist. He is a deep central midfielder in a side that scored 37 goals, and his job has been to hold the middle of the pitch rather than to arrive in the box. Both things are true at once: he is the most promising footballer Pyunik have, and his output so far is a blank sheet. This is the season we find out which way that goes.
Add Daniil Kulikov and Sead Islamović, and Pyunik have real depth in the one area where most of their quality now sits. If Hayk Tatosyan, back from a loan at Van where he started ten league games, forces his way in as well, this becomes a genuinely crowded midfield.
There's an extra layer to Dashyan's game to be aware of. While he is a central midfielder by trade (and is listed as one in Fantasy), he is highly versatile and Oseyan has previously deployed him at right-back. With Alemão gone and that side of the defence looking unsettled, Dashyan is a genuine two-position player this season. Where he ultimately lines up will dictate what you should expect from him—we'll touch more on this below.
Europe: the easy round, then the hard one
Pyunik went to Malta on 9 July and beat Marsaxlokk 3:0 away in the first leg of Conference League qualifying. Momo Yansane converted a penalty, Dashyan added a second from distance, and Kovalenko turned in a third after the goalkeeper parried a shot from new signing Iasonas Pikis.
The return is in Yerevan on 16 July. Barring a catastrophe, that tie is done.
What comes next is a different proposition entirely.
Debrecen finished fourth in the Hungarian top flight last season with 53 points from 33 matches. Hungary is a considerably stronger league than Armenia and Debrecen are a considerably better-resourced club than Pyunik. This is not a tie Pyunik go into as favourites.
There is recent history here, too. Pyunik went out of Europe last summer to another Hungarian side, Győr. They won the home leg 2:1, then lost 3:1 in Hungary and went out 4:3 on aggregate. Close, but out. It's a particularly tough draw for a squad that has just lost more than nine thousand minutes of last season's football.
The window so far
27 · from Noah · 2023/24 champion
25 · Olympiakos Nicosia · €50k
24 · Roda JC · free
23 · Urartu · free · centre-back
21 · back from loan at Van · 10 starts
22 · back from loan at Gandzasar
27 starts, every match · Real Murcia
7 goals, joint top scorer · left club
22 starts · left club
17 starts at right-back · left club
15 starts at centre-back · left club
10 starts · Alashkert
Six out, and of the six who came in only one, Pikis, is a striker — a €50,000 centre-forward from Cyprus. Iman Griffith, a free transfer from the Dutch second division, is being asked to fill the shirt of a man who started every league match of the season. Both were on the bench in Malta.
There is one more name to watch. Sead Islamović is under contract until 2027, but there has been persistent talk of a departure. Nothing is signed, so we are treating it as a rumour rather than a fact — but if he does go, that is another sixteen starts out of a midfield that is being asked to carry this team.
Prediction: 3rd place
We think Pyunik finish third again, and we think that would be a good season rather than a neutral one.
The case for it is the defence and the coach. The back line that conceded fewer goals than anyone in Armenia is largely intact — Avagyan in goal, Vakulenko and Filipe Almeida in front of him — and Oseyan's whole method is built on keeping the score down. His 25 matches produced 2.04 points per game, which over a full season is 55 points, which is third place almost exactly. Add a midfield that now contains two returning champions and the most promising 21-year-old in the country, and the floor here is high.
The case against it is the 46 percent. They have lost nearly half their goals and have not credibly replaced them. A team that scored one goal or fewer in fifteen of twenty-seven matches has just sold its joint top scorer and its only ever-present. If Yansane gets injured, there is no proven Armenian Premier League goalscorer left in the building.
Two risks are worth naming properly.
The first is the full-backs. Alemão's 1,512 minutes have not been replaced with a like-for-like signing. Artak Dashyan will most likely drop in to play as a right-back, leaving the options behind him — a loanee from Ural and a squad player who arrived from Shirak in the winter — unproven in that role at this level. One injury to Vakulenko or Almeida and the whole structure has to be improvised.
The second is the immediate toll of the European qualifiers. Even without a deep run into the autumn group stages, juggling Thursday night fixtures with the start of the domestic season will test such a thin squad. Dropping early points in August because of tired legs could leave them playing catch-up.
Ararat-Armenia and Noah both have more attacking talent, more money and more depth. Alashkert, a point behind last season, have signed Aghbalyan and will push. Third is where the evidence puts Pyunik, and third would be a solid season for a club in the middle of a rebuild.
Fantasy: what to look at
The picture at Pyunik is unusually clear. This is a defensive asset, and the further forward you go, the more careful you have to be.
Price list (not final; prices can change before launch)
Avagyan6.0mBuchnev4.5mA. Petrosyan4.0mF. Almeida6.5mVakulenko6.5mKovalenko6.0mG. Almeida5.0mJames5.0mKainourgios5.0mDarbinyan4.5mE. Simonyan4.5mAharonyan4.0mPapikyan4.0mHarutyunyan8.0mKulikov7.5mK. Hovhannisyan6.5mTarakhchyan7.5mGriffith6.5mIslamović6.5mMalakyan6.5mAfyan5.5mDashyan5.5mTatosyan5.0mL. Petrosyan5.0mKarepetyan4.5mYansane10.0mPikis7.0mMetoyan5.0mThe cheapest elite defence in the game
Pyunik conceded 18 goals, fewer than Noah's 19 and the champions' 25, and kept 14 clean sheets. A clean sheet is worth four points to a goalkeeper or a defender, so a club that keeps them at Pyunik's rate is where the reliable points live.
Henri Avagyan at 6.0m is the most expensive goalkeeper in the game, and we would pay it. He started 26 of 27 matches, so there is no rotation risk at all, and he kept 13 clean sheets behind the meanest defence in the country.
Vakulenko and Filipe Almeida both cost 6.5m and there is genuinely nothing to choose between them: twenty starts each, ten clean sheets and twelve. Take whichever one you prefer. What matters is that both are cheaper than Ararat-Armenia's Hugo Oliveira and level with four Noah defenders who play in a defence that conceded more goals than this one.
The one to keep an eye on is Erik Simonyan at 4.5m. He arrived from Urartu having played 112 minutes of league football all last season, which is exactly why he is cheap. But he is the third centre-back at a club that keeps more clean sheets than anyone, and if Oseyan ever shifts to a back three, 4.5m becomes the cheapest way into the best defence in Armenia. He has to get into the team first.
Dashyan is the interesting one
Artak Dashyan costs 5.5m and is listed as a midfielder. He is not only a midfielder. He has spent years moving between central midfield and right-back — he did both in the title-winning season — and Oseyan has used him in both roles since he came back.
That matters more than it sounds, because a clean sheet pays a defender four points and a midfielder only one. If Dashyan spends this season at right-back, he will be sitting in the league's meanest defence collecting almost nothing for it, while getting nowhere near the goals: he managed none, and no assists, in 589 league minutes after his January return.
If he plays in central midfield, 5.5m for a two-time champion in a settled side is cheap. He is the one player at this club whose value swings entirely on where the team sheet puts him, and the team sheet has genuinely gone both ways. Watch the first couple of rounds before you commit.
Be careful with the rest of the midfield
Pyunik's central midfielders did not produce last season, and the shape of the team is the reason. Karlen Hovhannisyan played 1,588 league minutes with no goals and no assists. Sead Islamović started sixteen times and produced a single assist.
None of that is a criticism of either player. It is what happens to central midfielders in a team that scores 37 goals and is built to defend. Hovhannisyan at 6.5m is the one people will be tempted by, and we understand why: he is 21, he has three senior caps, and he scored against Noah in the cup. But a breakout has to show up in the goals and assists column before it is worth paying for, and so far it has not. Hovhannes Harutyunyan at 8.0m is the most expensive midfielder at the club on the back of 690 minutes and no goals at Noah. He is a good footballer walking into a team that actually wants him, but that is a lot of faith at that price.
The rule of thumb: buy a Pyunik defender because Pyunik keep clean sheets, and do not buy a Pyunik midfielder for the same reason.
Where the goals actually are
Momo Yansane at 10.0m is the premium, and it is the one attacking price here we would pay. Seven goals in 911 minutes is a rate of 0.69 per 90, comfortably the best at the club and better than any Noah forward managed last season — and he did it as a rotation option. With Noubissi gone he is the undisputed number nine, and he opened the European campaign with a penalty in Malta.
Iasonas Pikis at 7.0m is the alternative, and he is a bet rather than a pick: a €50,000 signing from Cyprus with no Armenian football behind him, who started the Malta tie on the bench.
The quieter piece of value is Gevorg Tarakhchyan at 7.5m. He started 19 league matches, scored three goals and set up two more — solid production in a side that only scored 37 all season. Two things now work in his favour. Javi Moreno and Ocansey, the players taking the wide and attacking minutes ahead of him, have both gone, so his role can only grow. And he counts as a midfielder, which means each of his goals is worth five points rather than four, and he collects clean-sheet points in the meanest defence in the league on top of that.
Our current three
That trio costs 23.5m. If you would rather take the defence through a centre-back than a goalkeeper, Vakulenko or Filipe Almeida at 6.5m does the same job for half a million more — twenty starts each in the meanest defence in the league, and nothing to choose between them.
The honest summary is that Pyunik are a defensive Fantasy asset. Take the goalkeeper or a centre-back, take Yansane if you want the goals, and be careful with almost everyone else.
Bottom line
Pyunik conceded fewer goals than any team in Armenia, won more matches than the runners-up, and shut out the best attack in the country twice. Artak Oseyan took the job six days after Melikyan left for the national team and produced 51 points in 25 matches with a method that never needed more than one goal.
The defence is a real strength and the midfield now has genuine depth, but the attack remains a real problem.
Third place. And the reason to watch them is Oseyan, a coach who has already shown he can build a whole season out of 1:0.