Marked for Saba Arveladze
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 46. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nika Ananidze
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saburtalo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Sep 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Saburtalo hit back inside 3 minutes
Tskhinvali held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Saburtalo answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Match19 Sep 2026
It needed Mikheil Shengelia to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Tskhinvali, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market21 Sep 2026
Saburtalo have let the market know Saba Arveladze can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The pass was always on for Junior Brítez
Chances created: 4. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 47. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 99 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 99 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 70 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Guram Lobjanidze takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Guram Lobjanidze provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market7 Sep 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.
Squad7 Sep 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 3‑2, and it was Guram Lobjanidze’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Saburtalo.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 64. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 106 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 106 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saburtalo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cleiderman Osorio 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
7.91, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Saburtalo had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.