Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 397. (Read 130443 times)

This is their first season with some good players, so I still think it's normal that they're still struggling to build a more solid team and I also agree that football is a team game not an individual game based on star players.
Maybe they can learn from other clubs like Paris Saint Germain, how they repeatedly fail while they have many star players, in this context I am talking about their work in the Champions League, because in Ligue 1 they have almost no reliable competitors.
Al Ittihad's performance is not satisfactory at all, they must be able to find the source of their problems, after that they can improve themselves even better.

Al Ittihad performance not really promising well in this season although they spent much money for signing Karim Benzema, Fabinho and N'Golo Kanté. Current standings of Al Ittihad drop drastically until 6th standings position and remaining 22 points left from Al Ahli although have two matches left. I doubt with Al Ittihad can defend their domestic league tittle in this season with many points left difficult to raise Al Ahli points and likely close opportunity for Al Ittihad win domestic league tittle in this season.
I think left Al Ahly and Al Nassr are two favorite teams will win domestic league tittle in this season and closely Al Ahly have bigger chance with their performance not defeat yet until 18 games.

Even though ittihad has made a lot of investments but it's not yet working. I meant to look at the current position of al ittihad. It was not able to keep up with al nassr and al hilal. I could call that if all investments being made by ittihad was failed.
It's caused by the current positions have been reflecting how good the investmens being made by al ittihad. All of the money spent by the club become useless since there was a lot of problems are happening int he club.
Al ittihad is struggling with its performance and it takes a very long time to build a proer chemistry again. Even al ittihad sack its coach due tot he requested from benzema to did it.
The star player think he can control the club whatever he wanted as he has been more experienced in the football.

This season, Al Hilal has managed to win 3 times by scoring more than 5 points in one match, and most recently they beat the Abha team, which is one of the weakest teams this season and is one of the candidates to be relegated.
Won by scores 7-0 but the one who managed to score a hat trick was not their mainstay striker Aleksandar Mitrović but their midfielder Sergej Milinković-Savić and Mitrović only scored 1 goal through a penalty kick, actually this match was a good opportunity for Mitrović to score lots of goals and leave Ronaldo behind in number goals if he wants to become the top scorer in the Saudi pro league, but seeing how strong Al Hilal is this season, there is still a wide opportunity for Mitrović to score more goals, especially when facing weak teams such as when they will face Al Raed in the next two matches.

Al Ittihad is a rich team and they bought many expensive players like Benzema during the summer but unfortunately, they didn't know how they should spend the money, because the players Al Ittihad bought during the season didn't help the team. In fact, they bought players from top European teams while these players were mostly not useful anymore in their teams or they were far from their good form.
For example, you saw during this season Benzema was mostly injured or he was not in the good form to help the team, and spending a huge amount of money on this player was really useless.

Even many statics and things are wired here in this league but as we all know these are early days for them to jump from an average league to jump into one of the best leagues so they are doing things like these just for having better environment for the future and also better exposure of the game around the globe if you know then check four top clubs are owned by just one company which is also public fund as well so they are investing this all for the long run and in near future we will have too many changes, but these are not easy as we have in European markets because this is completely different place with different culture and region which is trying to change their all with huge investments and by their own influence which they have in last few decades after investing good amounts in many clubs of UEFA.

It is true that Ittihad has spent a lot of money to recruit star players from the European leagues but unfortunately Ittihad cannot make good use of the players they recruit, even though Ittihad hopes that spending a lot of money on players can improve their performance but instead they can't do much, the coach can't. establish cooperation between players to build better cooperation. In my opinion, the clubs that have managed to perform well by spending a lot of money are Al Hilal and Al Nassr. Both clubs spending a lot of money on star players and these players can make a good contribution.

I couldn't agree more. Ittihad's investment in players and resources should indeed make them strong contenders, but the essence of football lies in teamwork. Damac's current position reflects their cohesion on the field. It's not just about individual stars; it's about how well the team functions as a unit. Ittihad may need to reevaluate its approach, focus on teamwork, and ensure that its high budget translates into effective collaboration on the pitch.

but it seems there is a desire for Roma to sign Lukaku permanently. That's because of Lukaku's good performance with Roma. but reportedly that could happen if Roma manages to enter the Champions League next season. whether that's possible or not because the competition in Serie A is quite tight at the moment.
if Roma can't achieve that, Lukaku may go to Saudi. Due to the loan contract from Roma and Chelsea, Lukaku will only stay at Roma for one season. and after that, if the Al Hilal Negotiations go well, maybe they really will have it.

You are completely right about Ittihad's behavior. They've put a lot of money and time into their team, so they should be one of the favorites. But in football, as you rightly said, it's not just about the stars; it's about the team as a whole. Right now, Damac's position just shows that they work better together. In football, teamwork is like well-oiled gears: everything needs to work together. There's more than one or two players involved. Ittihad seems to have missed this message with all the money they spend. They should get together, work together, and play like the team their budget says they are

It's not only that. There is also another problem like the club was giving a special privilege for all of them. They receoved very big salaries even more compared to the combined salaries received by other players. They got also more privilege like received VVIP service.
I remind you ronaldo received a lot of luxury cars to be used as his daily transportation. It was so crazy to see that and i think that al hilal is a club with only a few european players. Al hilal was able performing even better compared to the al nassr and ittihad.
It's so pity to see how al ittihad has been declining a lot since there was an internal problem between benzema vs its coach. This is the main problem that needs to be solved as soon as possible.
The club was offering non sense salary for the super star player but the gap is too big compared to the ordinary player in the club. This is also creating bad environment in the club.

The are the best team in the league so far, being top of the league is not the only reason i say they are the best but also performance wise they are the best. They seem to have best attacking mode and the defense also compliments it perfectly and all apartments are in good form. Despite Neymar being absent due to injury they still show that they are more than capable to win the league, they out play and win almost any team that comes their way. The approach and style of play adopted by the coach is the best i have seen so far in the league.

Adding Lukaku will make them a nightmare for the real of the teams but I believe most teams will also look to add more strength to their team. Lukaku + Mitrovic will be one of the best combinations if they are able to sign him and will be difficult for most teams to keep up.

Mitrovic is busy scoring the goals but i think the defenders and Midfielders are the ones carrying the team lowkey.

It doesn't make sense at all. But there is reason to do so. We didn't know much about Saudi clubs even a few years ago. They have come to the discussion by spending a lot of money. World star players like Neymar, Ronaldo and Benzema have been added to the squad. And this is why the world is now aware of Saudi clubs. We regularly discuss Saudi clubs. Adding players to the squad by spending a lot of money is part of Saudi Arabia's marketing strategy. Because if they didn't do it, the Saudi club wouldn't be so well known.

In this season Al-Hilal is surely playing into completely different planet with their performance is unbelievable they are having the best attack and their defence is also amazing with this performance no doubt things are easy for them, and they can handle this all easily without any problem even they lost Neymar Jr but currently Metrovic is really amazing with currently his tally is in level with Cristiano Ronaldo, and we can expect good competition between them for the highest goalscorer in this season here in Saudi Professional League.

Abha is already in relegation zone, and they are badly punished by the leaders with we have hat-trick from the Milinkovic-Savic and 16th goal from the Metrovic who is also having the best time after coming from Fulham to here in this league.

Yeah it's only for a while because today Al-Nassr will play their 17th match and I'm also sure Ronaldo will score. The sportsbook has released the betting markets for this match it seems they predict Al-Nassr will win by 2 goals or more the handicap is Al-Nassr -1.5 yeah this makes sense because of Al-Nassr's ambition to continue to get closer to Al-Hilal and Ronaldo's ambition to take over the top scorer. If Al-Nassr can win these 2 matches then the point difference is 7 then Al-Nassr will wait for another important moment to continue collecting points, the problem is that Al-Nassr has to wait for Al-Hilal to be defeated while the team that can beat Al-Hilal is probably only Al-Nassr and that opportunity could come next May when both teams fight each other it's just that one defeat is not enough to replace Al-Hilal at the top of the standings at least Al-Hilal must lose 2-3 times.

Actually Al-Nassr's chances of winning the title have become smaller since they were defeated by Al-Hilal at the beginning of December and Al-Nassr needs a miracle to catch up but yeah we know Ronaldo is there he will do anything to exceed his target and there is still time to do it. I can't imagine how Ronaldo feels when in 2 seasons they are unable to win the title even though he has done his best including being the top scorer, the choice is 2 winning the Saudi Pro League or Asian Champions League one of them can help Ronaldo to stay with Al-Nassr.

Finally very interested with Saudi Pro League top scorer standings after Aleksandar Mitrović scoring one goals when Al Hilal winning over 7-0 against Abha make him has the same with Cristiano Ronaldo goals. Cristiano Ronaldo have two matches left with Al Nassr and has chance return to top scorer position standings because against Al Ittifaq seems not difficult for Cristiano Ronaldo scoring goals.  
Beside have both name leaded top scorer awhile between Cristiano Ronalod and Aleksandar Mitrović right now have Georges-Kévin N'Koudou in top scorer standings with 14 goals and he left two goals from Ronaldo or Mitrovic.

if there are problems next season, it might happen. we will never know how long Lukaku will continue to play for Roma. At least problems are unlikely to occur until the end of this season.
but this rumor might be wrong if Roma ends up continuing to use Lukaku. if he becomes more productive and asks him to be very important in the team, of course Roma will not just let him go.
but if Lukaku makes a personal deal with an Arab club, we might see him playing for an Arab club next season.

I am not sure whether this is going to be successful. The amount of money offered by Al Hilal is not that big. We are talking about €60 million spread across two years. Also, he is currently playing for AS Roma and they don't have any intention to release him. But if somehow Al Hilal is successful, then without any doubt they will become unbeatable in the Saudi Professional League. Already they are 12 points ahead of the second placed Al Nassr. And yesterday they destroyed Abha by a margin of 7-0 and that included a hat-trick from Sergej Milinković-Savić.

It's caused by that odds was not even worth with the risk if al hilal will be surprisingly draw against its opponent. Al hilal is still on its prime and anyone who is willing to risking their money to bet onto the al hilal may get easy pennies.

I would like to call that is as pennies consider it was only giving very very small odds. Bookies knew that al hilal will be winning the game easily. There was no club that is even better compared to the al hilal in the SPL. That odds obviously make sense.
I refrain myself from betting on it due to the very low odds. It doesn't even make sense to see that. I meant the odds is not even worthy to put some bucks on it.

Others may have seen it as easy money but it's up to them. I have no complaint regarding it as they were taking the risk by their own decision.

Well, Al Hilal plans to bring in Lukaku and this looks like it will be good effort by Al Hilal because Lukaku himself is striker who can be relied on, even though his performance has decreased, at least he is much better now.
In the previous transfer window, Al Hilal had too much drama when they wanted to bring in several players, but now they are prioritizing players who really have a big chance of getting them.

And it is true to say that Mitrovic is the most successful transfer from Al Hilal and it can also be seen that Mitrovic himself is currently the main player in the Al Hilal squad.
He succeeded in bringing Al Hilal to the top of the SPL standings with 50 points and Mitrovic has also provided 16 goals with 4 assists in 16 matches.

I sure that having Lukaku with them can help Mitrovic in bringing Al Hilal to win the SPL and of course these two players will be a series of players who can be very sharp in Al Hilal attack line.