Marked for Dato Lobjanidze
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Kolkheti training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ridouan Essaeh 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nobody at Kolkheti 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Aug 2026
Dinamo Tbilisi ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Kolkheti's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Kolkheti has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Khvicha Shengelia 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
3 matches without a goal for Kolkheti
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Baris Yazici 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Shota Kakabadze 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.