The Khazar Gazette
Match27 Oct 2029
Inter punish Khazar for switching off
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Nicola Martinelli will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Khazar escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market29 Oct 2029
Eddy Ismayilov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
Nobody could get near Dimitrij Nazarov
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Tempers go at Khazar
Nicola Martinelli 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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Nicola Martinelli is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.30 with 14 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match27 Oct 2029
Nicola Martinelli’s goal not enough for Khazar
Nicola Martinelli scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Inter, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Vadim Churilov 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 ratings29 Oct 2029
Renat Garayev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Khazar lose Samir Mammadov
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
In brief
- Market The Nicola Martinelli talk will not go away
- Player ratings Kamran Ismayilov changes it off the bench
- Player ratings Vadim Churilov spends the afternoon fouling