Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 113. (Read 119090 times)

Well, I hope Al-Nassr can become even stronger in the coming season. And I'm quite happy with how this team is hunting for players in the current transfer market. Because it seems like Al-nassr is well aware that their back line needs to get more attention. And they have now succeeded in bringing in a goalkeeper from Brazil who actually has quite promising qualities. Bento has officially signed a contract with the Al-Nassr club which is fresh news for this club in preparation for the upcoming season. I hope Al-nassr can also bring in several other quality defenders. Because last season I felt that Al-Nassr's defenders did not perform well.

It would be a shame if Ivan Rakitic left Al Shabab, because he only played half a season there. However, if he does choose to leave, then nothing can stop him, especially since Ivan Rakitic will move to a club from his home country. In fact, according to several reports circulating, Ivan Rakitic rarely lives in Croatia at all. Because reportedly Ivan Rakitic grew up in Switzerland and not Croatia. So if, for example, Ivan Rakitic officially joins Hajduk Split, maybe that means Ivan Rakitic can actually stay in Croatia.
Apart from that, it is natural that he would want to spend his old age in his home country. Even though he basically left the opportunity to make big money from clubs in Saudi Arabia. However, comfort will indeed be Ivan Rakitic's priority. Therefore, Ivan Rakitic chose to move to Hadjuk Split.

Apart from that, Ivan Rakitic's departure means Al Shabab has to look for another player in the central midfield position. Because it is certain that if Ivan Rakitic really leaves for Hadjuk Split, then Al Shabab will no longer have a central midfielder they can rely on. Because when Al Shabab brought in Ivan Rakitic in the middle of last season, Al Shabab's performance improved slightly. So now that Al Shabab really loses Ivan Rakitic, I'm sure his performance will drop again. That's why Al Shabab really has to find a replacement for Ivan Rakitic quickly, because if not, it could have an adverse impact on their team.

Ivan Rakitić, the former superstar player of Barcelona who played for Al Shabab during this season is now ready to leave Al Shabab. Ivan Rakitić could get a higher salary and play for the other teams in the Arabian countries to earn more money there considering the offers he had. But It seems since Rakitić is a 36-year-old player, he wants to end his career in his own country.
Hajduk Split is the next destination for Rakitić they had some negotiations and Al Shabab doesn't have any problem letting him go.

   

In the end Al Ahli was able to win this match and I won my bet


Basically this match is quite easy for Al Ahli because the opponent is a weak club, Al Ahli has a strong performance in the Saudi League almost on par with Al Nassr and Al Hilal so even though this is a pre-season match he will try to do his best and not disappoint.

Losing Saint Maximin will not have a big impact on Al Ahli because they also have other players who are no less good. Moreover, this player was also not very productive in scoring goals last season, he only scored 4 goals in 30 appearances, but yes, he was very helpful in providing assists. goals and helping his teammates, but no matter what, Al Ahli can't continue to depend on these players.

Yeah the coach might be one factor but I think there are other factors too for example, Al-Nassr's defense line is weaker compared to Al-Hilal who was consistent and undefeated throughout the season therefore, Al-Nassr must bring in defenders and goalkeepers if they want to compete with Al-Hilal next season. In this transfer market, Al-Nassr does not appear to have carried out any activities so far there has only been one player transfer from the Brazil league.

We know that money is not the main problem for Al-Nassr in bringing players but they are waiting for the right moment and paying attention to European players who do not renew their contracts so it will be easier to negotiate. Last season Al-Nassr spent 166 Million so it doesn't make sense that they only spent 18 million for this transfer window, I think at least Al-Nassr will spend around 100 million.

In my opinion, Al Nassr will not come back stronger because they do not have a good coach, see that a few days ago, Al Nassr played a friendly game in which the result was a draw against a team from a lower division, but even so, Al Nassr did not managed to beat this Portuguese team that is in the lower division



I have constantly said that Al Nassr's problem lies in the coaches that the club has chosen, if Al Nassr's management had chosen to choose a foreign coach who has a good record of achievements in Europe's big leagues, I believe that the club's performance Al Nassr would have been much better because they have good players, but they lack someone with great experience to guide them well during the games and also add players who can further improve the team's performance, we saw last season how Al Hilal managed to win easily any team in the league, that's thanks to Al Hilal's good coach, we just need to look at the history of achievements of the Al Hilal coach and compare it with the history of achievements of the Al Nassr coach to conclude that there is a big difference. today Al Nassr will have another friendly game against a Portuguese team

Maybe Al Nassr couldn't spend too much money and that's why they had to hire Bento, otherwise, they had some other options than hiring Bento. First, they wanted to hire Ederson from Manchester City but they couldn't do that because the money Ederson asked was much more than they could pay him.
However Bento is not a bad goalkeeper, he was playing for Paranaense in the last season and he was a 25-year-old player was Ederson was 30.


 

They need more than one defender to step up the team to be able to stand this season's challenge with their opponent team, even to me, their team needs total overhauling in order to have a formidable team. They need to be able to contend with Al Hila and Al Ahli their major rivals in this season's trophy. I wasn't happy with how they were conceding lots of goals during the last season's competition that made all of Ronaldo's effort to amount to nothing.

Al Nassr will come out stronger than never before because they're adding more prominent players in the transfer window. There's definitely going to be improvements for these clubs next season, these perspective coaches will managed top duties and handles without stress. Al Nassr ended the 2023/2024 SPL campaign in good position that makes them competitive for the SPL title next season. This season was probably in favour of Al Hilal that won the major trophies with eliminating the Knights of Najd in most games faced.

In his first season with Al Ittihad, Benzema's career did not go as smoothly as expected because he experienced many problems in his first season. But all of that has been resolved well and he should be able to show changes in his second season with Al Ittihad. Apart from that, we know that Benzema is a striker who is hungry for goals, but in the previous season he was only able to contribute 9 goals in the 21 matches he played. Of course, this was a big setback for him considering that Saudi Arabian football is not as fiercely competitive as Laliga.

Whether Benzema or other European players are of course an obstacle for them, they need time to adapt and perhaps that is what makes them fail to give their best in the first season. Al Ittihad of course have quite strong finances and I think they will be targeting many of Europe's top players in this transfer window.

Definitely an improvement, they lacked so much defensively that was why they couldn’t go head on again Al Hilal last season and it was also the reason why they couldn’t get any trophy. They were good performance wise but their defense department was poor that they would easily concede against any team they face and Champions must be disciplined enough not to concede to just any team.

The attackers did their job well by scoring enough goals but the defenders couldn’t cover well for the attackers but i believe the management is well aware of the situation and is doing everything possible to strengthen the defense. They have gotten a new GK i hope he is able to prove himself and perform better than the previous goal keeper, adding more defenders should be looked into as well (including full backs because i don’t think only Central defense is the problem).

I just found out that Al Ittihad is currently handled by Laurent Blanc, this information comes from transfermarkt, where previously I thought that Al Ittihad was officially handled by Stefano Pioli. Apart from that, Al Ittihad has not done much to get new arrivals from European League clubs, especially in the winger sector which they need to help Karim Benzema up front. Plus, it was previously rumored that Mohamed Salah would be brought by Al Ittihad to the Saudi Pro League with a quite fantastic transfer value. However, I am not following further developments, whether Al Ittihad still has interest in this Liverpool striker or not.

Talking about Al Ittihad next season, we can confirm that perhaps they have targeted several top European players to deepen their squad, none other than to make Al Ittihad much more competitive. The goal is for Al Ittihad to compete closely with other elite clubs in the Saudi Pro League. Moreover, several clubs, whether shaded by the PIF company or others, are currently focused on bringing in several European players to prepare their performance before this competition begins. So you can be sure that Al Ittihad will do the same thing, especially since they also have a very healthy budget. What is certain is that next season the Saudi Pro League competition will be quite tight, because several teams are preparing their squads to be much stronger in the fight for the League title.

This should be an easy match for Al-Ahli but sometimes even weak teams can overturn expectations. The reason is that there are quite a lot of pre-season matches that produce bad results for the top teams and therefore, if you want to bet, you have to consider it carefully.

On the other hand, Al-Ahli may want to try a new strategy considering that Saint Maximin has left to join Fenerbahce and it seems that coach Matthias Jaissle wants to convince his team to be more competitive in the Saudi pro league starting next season. The reason is that last season they lost their performance and lost so many points. Even so, Al-Ahli was still able to finish in 3rd place in the standings, but the margin between the two teams above was more than 15 points.

Today Al Ahli will play a friendly match against Ujpest FC and this is their first meeting according to odds Al Ahli has more convincing odds to win but because this is a friendly match so we need to be careful if we want to bet the possibility of surprises can still happen because I also I don't know what the performance of his opponent Al Ahli will be like this time.
However, I will try to bet on Al Ahli's victory, hopefully this club does not disappoint me

Benzema was also put under pressure by the fans, this is an additional factor that certainly does not contribute to the player’s adaptation to the new team. There is also such a moment, a forward can score with decent support, which he received in Real Madrid, but in another team everything will be different, when there is no teamwork, everything can be different. In addition, a not very good relationship with the coach only made everything worse. Now everything should change for the better, Blanc should get along well with Benzema, especially since they have already worked together.

This is very good news for Al Nassr, now I believe that Al Nassr is ready to play well next season, and the team knows what is their main problem, I have said before that Al Nassr's goalkeeper is not good, but I don’t even know where they got the goalkeeper that is conceded a lot of goals from, the goalkeeper is not good and he is one of the reasons why Al Hilal beat Argentina with many goals, I see some mistakes that he did in some matches, Al Nassr has been suffering throughout last season but I think they are about to let people know that they are also the best team in the Saudi Arabia league.

Al Nassr also needs to change some players, some of Al Nassr's players are not good especially the midfielders and the defenders, the midfield doesn’t know how to control a game against a big team like Al Hilal, Al Hilal doesn’t have any good players but they play well and control the midfield so that they can win against their opponents easily, I will like Al Nassr to sign more players and win a trophy next season.

Yes, after several great goalkeepers were offered contracts by Al Nasr, Bento was finally the one who signed a contract with Al Nasr. This Brazilian goalkeeper certainly has the ability to guard Al Nasr's goal more safely. The reason is that Bento has quite promising talent, even from several media that I read, it is reported that Inter Milan is also very interested in bringing in Bento. So it can be concluded that Bento does have very promising talent, especially now that Bento is still young, so his talent can continue to be honed until it becomes even better.

Apart from that, talking about defenders, until now I have not heard of any player that Al Nasr really wants to bring in. Maybe this week Al Nasr will definitely start looking for a new defender for his team. Varane could have been chosen by Al Nasr, because currently Varane is no longer playing at Manchester United, because his contract expired a few weeks ago. So that way Al Nasr can try to offer Varane a contract. However, according to news circulating, Varane is rumored to be joining a club from Serie A, namely Como. In fact, it is reported that there are only a few stages left for Varane to actually officially join the club. So if the news is true, it might be a little difficult for Al Nasr to bring in the former Manchester United defender.

And in my personal opinion, maybe Brandon William could be a suitable player for Al Nasr to offer a contract to. The reason is, the former Manchester United defender currently does not have a club, because his contract with Manchester United has expired. And until now I have not heard news that Brandon has been offered a contract by another club. So Al Nasr could step in to be the first club to offer him a contract.

How can you conclude Al Ittihad to be most aggressive? They only could sign 1 top European player so far (Houssem Aouar) after they hired Laurent Blanc as a new coach. I think it is just a small transfer, there will be no significant impact if there will be no other new players. Al Ittihad needs some new players if they really want to be competitive again and try to join the race for the title. Their defense looks quite weak, no strong defenders and no strong goalkeeper. I think Laurent Blanc can rebuild the squad from the defense line firstly.

Which young player are referring to?
It is good if Al Ittihad can sign young players with great skills. But it is no problem to sign old players, too. Both young and old players are needed to strengthen the club performance.

Al Hilal still didn't sign any new player? I think the club management is satisfied with their current squad. Sure, Al Hilal looks like to continue their domination in Saudi league. Al Hilal is the team that has the most established squad.

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Check SPL transfer news: https://www.transfermarkt.com/saudi-professional-league/transfers/wettbewerb/SA1

Bento isn't a bad one neither, ı would say that he is actually a decent goalkeeper and could do very well. This of course doesn't mean that he is better than Ederson, I would still say that Ederson would have been better, but I assume that City had trouble finding a replacement that would be similar, so instead they decided to keep Ederson. This is still an improvement for Al-Nassr though, they are still getting a better player and it should probably improve the team a lot.

Ronaldo has done his fair share by trying to keep the team scoring, but they were conceding too many goals to win anything, which is why I think it is clear that they needed a better defense, including a GK as well. They got one now, lets see if they are going to get any defenders too. I assumed they would have gotten Varane, it looked like they were going to do fine, but right now when I am looking at it, I am not hearing any news about them getting a new defender, seems like that is not the case. If they could get someone like Varane (he is gone now) then we could see them become much better, like so good that they could win the league without losing any game. I don't know who is available for them to purchase though.

Karim Benzema can't performed well for the first season with Al Ittihad and he still need more time get adaption well exactly huge difference culture and weather between Saudi Arabia and European culture.
I don't think its much problem for Karim Benzema return back to his top perform on second season exactly keep stay with Al Ittihad and not any decision yet he want leaves before his contract expiring. Al Ittihad not performed well in this season after finish on 5th standings place but have advantage for next season without participating or playing at AFC Champion League make them keep focus in domestic league regarding the rival team Al Nassr and Al Hilal will playing in AFC Champion  League.

Some Saudi Arabia club have start with signing top european players but Al Ittihad keep quit and not make any new signing yet behind several teams have announced two or three new players signed. I think Al Ittihad need to sign many top qualities or European players if want get back in the winning race with Al Hilal or Al Nassr most active sign new player recently.