Marked for Elliot Collier
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
The wait goes on for Sogdiana
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market31 Aug 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sogdiana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Elliot Collier
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match29 Aug 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Nasaf defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The plan did not have a place for Zoir Jo'raboyev
Nobody at Sogdiana is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Sogdiana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Sogdiana's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sogdiana has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 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 Sogdiana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Suhrob Izzatov 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“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.
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 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 Sogdiana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
Bunyodkor will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mirjalol Norqobilov has pre-agreed a move to Sogdiana, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Islomjon Qobilov, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Shortan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad10 Aug 2026
This league is too small for Elliot Collier
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Sogdiana will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sogdiana, another week without a signature from Nikola Mirković.
Market10 Aug 2026
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Market10 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Tohirbek To'xtasinov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Sogdiana.