Navbahor made it five goals past Khorezm on Saturday afternoon in the Superliga's fifteenth round. The hosts ran out winners 5-1 at home, extending their unbeaten run to eight matches after a run of draws and defeats that had visitors worried. And here's the thing — you could see the difference in intent from the opening exchanges.
K. Norchaev opened the scoring in the sixteenth minute, then doubled his tally before half-time. He added two more after the break — a brace and a hat-trick in quick succession. S. Ismoilov struck on forty-five-plus-four, and R. Jiyanov rounded off the scoring in the sixty-eighth. By then, Khorezm had already switched to damage limitation.
The visitors made three substitutions in the seventy-second minute alone, bringing on M. Usmonov and U. Khoshimov alongside R. Abdukhamidov. To be fair, they had been caught in possession far too often. A. Otakhonov came on earlier at forty-six, but the game had slipped away before then. Norchaev was substituted in the eightieth, his work done.
Navbahor dominated possession at fifty-seven per cent and registered thirty-six attacks against Khorezm's two hundred and twenty-five. They landed eight shots on target from seventeen attempts, while the visitors managed just one on target from three attempts. By then the result was never in doubt — many shots with five goals meant they were efficient, not wasteful.
Navbahor sit third with twenty-one points from twenty-one games, twelve wins, five draws and four defeats. Khorezm remain thirteenth on the same total of twenty-one points, though their record tells a different story with five wins, six draws and ten losses. The gap between them is closing in the table, but not in the way either side expected.