Marked for Jaba Chakvetadze
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Nov 2026
Saburtalo are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 18 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Saburtalo may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Nika Kashia
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch23 Nov 2026
“I watch every Saburtalo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Samtredia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Lasha Arveladze has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Saburtalo 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Nov 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nika Kashia in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I watch every Saburtalo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Shukura runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Oct 2026
Saburtalo refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 18 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch26 Oct 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saburtalo, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Lasha Arveladze has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Saburtalo 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Saburtalo the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The manager plants his flag on Nika Kashia
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Nika Kashia’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market12 Oct 2026
Davit Khelaia has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Merani they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Luis Soria in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Thanasis Papadoudis is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Merani
Nodar Kavtaradze 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Zviad Sikharulia 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.
In brief
-
Squad
The manager makes an example of Jaba Chakvetadze
-
Boardroom
89% of the income goes out in wages at Merani
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
Only the photograph left for Davit Khelaia
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Davit Khelaia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Merani the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Luis Soria in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Luis Soria gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Merani, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Match12 Sep 2026
Merani and Sioni take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Merani 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Merani know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jaba Chakvetadze obliged against Guria. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Saburtalo.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Otar Kvilitaia at 19 — 7.86
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otar Kvilitaia did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market17 Aug 2026
Guria come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Saburtalo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
At 19 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guram Chakvetadze 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Dila will make the call about Zurab Ananidze this week. Saburtalo have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.