Benzema is currently Al Ittihad's top scorer along with Houssem Auoar with 3 goals. Although they are still behind the 6 goals scored by Aleksandar Mitrovic from Al Hilal. However, Al Ittihad has achieved good results, they are at the top of the standings with full points from 3 matches and are unbeaten. That's with 2 other teams, Al Hilal and Al Ettifaq. While Al Nassr have not lost in 3 matches, but they have to be satisfied with 1 win and 2 draws. Al Nassr must work hard for the competition.
Al-Nassr really has to work harder this season if they want to improve their ranking in the Saudi Pro League standings. And it seems that Luis Castro as Al-Nassr coach has not yet completely found a better strategy this season. Because Al-Nassr still looks the same as last season, it could even be said to have experienced a slight decline this season. But because this is only the start of the season, there is still plenty of time for Al-Nassr to improve their performance. But the problem is that Al-Nassr will be far behind if they lose points in the next match so Al-Nassr can no longer experience a draw and of course Al-Nassr also cannot experience defeat this season if they want to continue fighting for the title. Because currently Al-Hilal and Al-Ittihad have also continued to win since the season started. Al-Ettifaq even showed results that were as good as Al-hilal and Al-ittihad, who were unbeaten. 
Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 59. (Read 118885 times)
It is very clear that Al-Hilal's goal in buying Neymar Jr is to bring more exposure to their club and league, because Neymar Jr has quite a lot of fans especially those based in the Americas, but unfortunately this is a failed calculation in my opinion because Neymar has almost never played for his club because of the serious injury he suffered.
If the purpose is for a more exposure, there are other players who deserve more than Neymar. Sure, it is no problem to sign Neymar to invite a more people to the club or to the Saudi league. However, it is very unfortunate if Al Hilal signed a player who rarely play for the team. Al Hilal spent a lot of money for Neymar, it is better to spend the money for a player who can play regularly.For Al-Hilal money is not a problem but they can't get what Al-Nassr got by bringing Ronaldo to the club because the club is getting more famous, I can see in my country how many Al-Nassr Jerseys are the choice to have and it is very different from Al-Hilal by bringing Neymar, and that is very unfortunate.
So the aim of Al-Hilal's investment in Neymar is to make this club more famous, not just to be successful in the league by buying young players.
Al Hilal may have no problem to spend huge money on Neymar. But it seems not worth it, spending a lot of money for a prone of injury player. Why don't Al Hilal tries to sign de Bruyne? Or try to sign other popular players who often becomes the candidate of Baloon D'Or. Signing a player for the exposure purpose and for the investment as well, this should be done by Al Hilal.So the aim of Al-Hilal's investment in Neymar is to make this club more famous, not just to be successful in the league by buying young players.
Benzema made a nice return with Al-Ittihad. He has scored so far 4 goals in two matches, including a hattrick in the latest match against Al-Wehda which was destroyed by Al-Ittihad by 7 goals to 1!
Benzema is currently Al Ittihad's top scorer along with Houssem Auoar with 3 goals. Although they are still behind the 6 goals scored by Aleksandar Mitrovic from Al Hilal. However, Al Ittihad has achieved good results, they are at the top of the standings with full points from 3 matches and are unbeaten. That's with 2 other teams, Al Hilal and Al Ettifaq. While Al Nassr have not lost in 3 matches, but they have to be satisfied with 1 win and 2 draws. Al Nassr must work hard for the competition.
Benzema made a nice return with Al-Ittihad. He has scored so far 4 goals in two matches, including a hattrick in the latest match against Al-Wehda which was destroyed by Al-Ittihad by 7 goals to 1!
Benzema has very good skills as he shown in many seasons especially amazing seasons after Cristiano Ronaldo left Real Madrid and Benzema became a main striker there. His problems are ageing, weaker body and more sensitive with injuries but in matches when he are ready, his performances are excellent, and I am not surprised about this.There is interesting news about Neymar in Al Hilal and it seems they are disappointed about this player. Neymar was a good player before he joined PSG in the last years but recently his performance has been disappointing and even when he joined Al Hilal he was injured. It seems even after he is back in the field he won't be able to perform well like the other players.
Spending millions of dollar for a star player who only can play 5 matches for your club after more than one season, what club can feel happy about this? Al-Hilal actually expected many more things from Neymar with very lucrative salary they were ready to pay for him when signing that contract. 
Benzema made a nice return with Al-Ittihad. He has scored so far 4 goals in two matches, including a hattrick in the latest match against Al-Wehda which was destroyed by Al-Ittihad by 7 goals to 1!
The other teams count on less foreigners stars, generally two.
Well until now the only team who have achieved anything despite being without his super star is the Al Hilal, they win everything and command in the league like they are the team to beat, and i repeat all of this without his key star and most valuable and expensive player who is Neymar.
The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
Sometimes I forgot that Neymar is playing with Al-Hilal since he doesn't play anything in reality and he is with the team on paper only. Besides, Al-Hilal has already many good and decisive players like Mitrovic, Malcolm, Milinkovic-Savic, without forgetting their excellent goalkeeper Bounou and some good Saudi players.The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
The other teams count on less foreigners stars, generally two.
Now they are in 7th position with a gap of 4 points from the top of the standings, that is still a safe distance as long as they can recover quickly and get points in the next matches. There are still many matches because this is only the 3rd week, so they still have many opportunities to return to the top competition, as long as they have to do what I said before.
Now AL Nassr seems to be declining a little, that is because they have not been able to fix what has been their weakness in the last few seasons. There are many things that they have to fix quickly, this will be the coach's job. I think if the coach cannot bring a good game for Al Nassr soon, then his position will be threatened, so that should be a motivation for the coach.
The problems in Al-Nassr's back line have not yet been completely resolved. Currently Al-Nassr may be able to cover their weaknesses a little with the presence of Bento as their new goalkeeper but that is not enough. Because their back line players also have to be improved again with better ones. And another problem is that the accuracy in utilizing opportunities in Al-Nassr's attack line is also not very good. Talisca and Sadio Mane quite often miss the opportunities they have. I understand that Talisca has declined after he was injured last season. But for Mane, to be honest, I'm a little disappointed. Now AL Nassr seems to be declining a little, that is because they have not been able to fix what has been their weakness in the last few seasons. There are many things that they have to fix quickly, this will be the coach's job. I think if the coach cannot bring a good game for Al Nassr soon, then his position will be threatened, so that should be a motivation for the coach.
In contrast to Al-nassr, we see that Al-Ittihad seems to have been able to improve on their weaknesses last season by becoming better this season. And all the players that Al-ittihad managed to bring in in the transfer market have proven to make Al-ittihad even stronger today. Especially Mousa Diaby, this young player has made Al-ittihad more stable in the game. Even Benzema seems to have risen to become the best player again this season. We'll see that in the Al-ittihad match against Al-Wehda, Benzema even scored a hat trick in that match. And regarding Mousa Diaby, even though he didn't score a goal in that match, he made many contributions that made Al-ittihad superior in that match. The season is still long and Al-Nassr must get up quickly if they don't want to be left behind by Al-ittihad and Al-hilal.
The return date for Neymar is still uncertain. Hence, there is a need to remove him from the team. Al Hilal had to decide to abide by the regulations of the Saudi Professional League. The league recently increased the amount of non-Saudi players in a club from eight to ten. To register the new signing Renan Lodi, Neymar would have to be removed for the rest of the season. I predict that his contract might not be renewed immediately after it expires. Severe injuries might be the undoing of one of the finest footballers Brazil has produced.
Renewing Neymar contract will definitely be a mistake for Al Hilal because I think they haven't enjoyed him the way they thought it will be, quite right Neymar is a good player but I considered him not to be lucky with his football career like so potential players whose names are still trending up to date, but Neymar has failed Al Hilal expectations because of his injuries. Al Hilal are the strongest team in Saudi currently assuming they all rely on Neymar to take them to the promise land by now they will be in relegation zone but unfortunately they still have the best players that keep them going to the top.In today's game Cristiano Ronaldo is not in the lineup against Al Shorta vs Al Nassr for the AFC Champions League which will start in few more minutes.
Al Shorta vs Al Nassr
Al Shorta predicted XI: Fadhil (GK); Jasim, Hashem, Younis, Yahya; Khudhair, Niang, Coumbassa, Farhan; Saleh; Al-Mawas
Al Nassr predicted lineup (4-2-3-1):
Bento (GK); Al Ghanam, Simakan, Laporte, Al Najdi; Al-Khaibari, Otavio, Brozovic; Ghareeb, Talisca; Mane
Mane felt so bad about Ronaldo absent to the extent that he said if the win they will dedicate the victory to him. Wish them best of luck.
There is interesting news about Neymar in Al Hilal and it seems they are disappointed about this player. Neymar was a good player before he joined PSG in the last years but recently his performance has been disappointing and even when he joined Al Hilal he was injured. It seems even after he is back in the field he won't be able to perform well like the other players.
Now since Al Hilal's list is full they won't take a risk and it seems Al Hilal decided to remove the name of Neymar from the list of the Saudi League games, so they will just use this player in the AFC Champions League during this season.
The return date for Neymar is still uncertain. Hence, there is a need to remove him from the team. Al Hilal had to decide to abide by the regulations of the Saudi Professional League. The league recently increased the amount of non-Saudi players in a club from eight to ten. To register the new signing Renan Lodi, Neymar would have to be removed for the rest of the season. I predict that his contract might not be renewed immediately after it expires. Severe injuries might be the undoing of one of the finest footballers Brazil has produced. Now since Al Hilal's list is full they won't take a risk and it seems Al Hilal decided to remove the name of Neymar from the list of the Saudi League games, so they will just use this player in the AFC Champions League during this season.
Well until now the only team who have achieved anything despite being without his super star is the Al Hilal, they win everything and command in the league like they are the team to beat, and i repeat all of this without his key star and most valuable and expensive player who is Neymar.
The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
Al Hillal is currently an unbeaten team in two seasons of the Arab League, last season Al Hillal managed to win the Arab League title by leaving Al Nassr quite far in the standings and even they were able to win the championship trophy with 34 matches without defeat, Al Hillal unbeaten record last season continues until this season where they are still able to maintain the record, Neymar injury since the beginning of last season has not had any effect on Al Hillal game so far, so indeed what we see at Al Hillal this season a form of extraordinary teamwork without relying on star players.The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
Regarding debt, to be honest, what happened to Al Nassr who is in debt seems to be an old problem that has been resolved, Because as far as I know, if Al Nassr has not paid off the debt of 390 thousand pounds to Leicester City which was compensation for the purchase of Ahmad Musa in 2018, then currently Al Nassr cannot register its new players, but in fact currently Al Nassr can register their new players to the Arab League authorities, because previously the FIFA disciplinary committee prohibited the registration of new players if the debt had not been paid off.
In my opinion, the Al Nassr board should have realized last season that Luis Castro was not able to bring good results, but the club's board kept the same coach. It seems to me that the goal of the Al Nassr board is to somehow make a profit from Ronaldo's image and not win titles. Because it is not normal that they do not think about hiring a good coach to win titles and this season the situation will be much worse because they have more than one strong team, unlike last season when they only had Al Hilal. Looking at the table for example:
indeed we don't know who is at fault behind Al-nassr's declining performance, but we can certainly see that the role of a coach is certainly very much needed and last season Al-nassr only managed to achieve runner up ranking but of course this is a good achievement but of course the fans Al-nassr, although last season Al-nassr only got the runner up ranking, they would definitely be even happier if Al-nassr became champion because in the 2022-2023 season Al-nassr also be runner up.
In this season, of course the hope of Al-Nassr fans and Cristiano Ronaldo fans is that they want to see Al-Nassr become champions, but of course if you look at the current situation, of course Al-Nassr will definitely have difficulties because when compared to the rival team Al-Nassr (Al-Hilal), of course Al-nassr's strength is very different because of course Al-hilal to this day has not experienced defeat in every match.
It is true that sometimes some people wonder why Luis Castro was able to be retained and continue to train at Al-Nassr. Yes, I think maybe the club management thinks that Castro will learn from last season's experience and they definitely think that Luis Castro will be better at training his men so that Al-Nassr has great potential to be better than last season. But of course we'll see what happens at the end of this season and whether Luis Castro is retained or not, but what is clear is that there are still big hopes for Luis Castro to be able to train his men to be better because it is still early in the season.
However, we don't know the goals of the Al-Nassr management, but yes, I can only hope that Al-Nassr can win and return to competing fiercely with Al-Hilal. But yes, what you say is true, of course this season there will definitely be tougher challenges that Al-Nassr will face because of course it's not just Al-Hilal that will be an obstacle for Al-Nassr to win the title.
Well until now the only team who have achieved anything despite being without his super star is the Al Hilal, they win everything and command in the league like they are the team to beat, and i repeat all of this without his key star and most valuable and expensive player who is Neymar.
The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
The other arab teams incluiding Al Nassr, are in full debt and they win nithing special.
I don't know if it is all about the coach, but you are probably right that it counts a lot. Though everyone would probably think that Al Nassr should have a realistic chance to win the title, too. But it seems that the big names on paper only count so much, and when it comes to putting the squad together and making every player to give their best, then Al Ittihad and Al Hilal have an edge as they also have better head coaches. Too many people thought that signing Ronaldo would be enough to win the title automatically. But as you could see in the game when they played against Al Hilal, he wasn't able to do anything.
Al Nassr invested huge amount for big players and there were expectations they are going to have good results, but sadly things are not going as expectations Al Nassr is also feeling no pressure as they are happy they are going good with Cristiano Ronaldo because this season again we are having not fair chances for them to create problems for titleholder Al Hilal with Al Ittihad and Al Ettifaq are impressive.New promoted side Al Qadisiya suffer first defeat against Al Shahab as things are going we will have good challenges for top teams in coming weeks with in round 4 Al Ettifaq going to host Al Nassr and defending champions Al Hilal is going to host league leaders Al Ittihad.
Gerrard side doing good job in early games as after first poor season he is adjusted with conditions, and the team is also having good depth which helping to keep things for staying at the top level.
The remaining time will see Al-Nassr take every opportunity that presents itself to avoid going down. The chase will be at a very high rate of pressure to ensure catching up, more so when the standings soon are starting to be threatened.
It should have been a good start to Ivan Tooney's career in his number 99 shirt at Al Ahli, And he would have been okay with helping his team to get three points from this game against Al Nassr even though he cannot score. The last minute equalizer for Al Nassr from an own goal took away all the joy that would have followed. Al Ahli will not be so happy with how they have started this season with them having just three points in just three games despite the team of talented players that they have. Al Nassr are far from the top of the table, they need to sit up.
Now AL Nassr seems to be declining a little, that is because they have not been able to fix what has been their weakness in the last few seasons. There are many things that they have to fix quickly, this will be the coach's job. I think if the coach cannot bring a good game for Al Nassr soon, then his position will be threatened, so that should be a motivation for the coach.
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In my opinion, the Al Nassr board should have realized last season that Luis Castro was not able to bring good results, but the club's board kept the same coach. It seems to me that the goal of the Al Nassr board is to somehow make a profit from Ronaldo's image and not win titles. Because it is not normal that they do not think about hiring a good coach to win titles and this season the situation will be much worse because they have more than one strong team, unlike last season when they only had Al Hilal. Looking at the table for example:
I agree with that, I even said it last season for this Al Nassr coach. It's just that the club management still maintains Luis Casto to coach Al Nassr. IMO, Luis Casto should be able to bring Al Nassr to the top of the standings with the depth of players they have. Unfortunately, even though Al Nassr has a very competitive depth, the coach has not been able to bring this team to win the Saudi Pro League trophy. There are not many reasons for Al Nassr management at this time, other than giving the coach time to correct the team as a whole so that its performance improves.
Referring to the point you made, I don't agree with that. We know very well that Ronaldo is a very ambitious type of player to win a title wherever he competes. How could he be willing to join Al Nassr if he didn't have a chance to win this competition, besides if Al Nassr wins it means they will get more benefits plus Ronaldo's image.
"Al Nassr's struggles under Luis Castro are alarming, especially considering the investment in Cristiano Ronaldo. The board's priorities seem misplaced, focusing on branding over trophies. With powerhouses Al-Ittihad and Al Hilal boasting experienced coaches like Laurent Blanc and Jorge Jesus, Al Nassr risks falling further behind. To compete, they need a coach who can match the tactical prowess of Blanc and Jesus. Until then, Ronaldo's presence alone won't secure titles."
Al Nassr has spent a lot of money to invest in players like Ronaldo and also other European stars, but so far their performance has not improved and obviously that makes their chances of winning the SPL this season will be very difficult, last season we could see if Ronaldo was still able to become the top scorer but his personal achievements were not accompanied by the success obtained by Al Nassr, Al Nassr performance last season was not consistent at all even though players like Ronaldo were able to contribute to every game they played, but what happened last season is not a lesson for the current Al Nassr who continues to keep Luis Castro as a coach, I think the tactics and strategies applied by Luis Castro so far is very easy to read by Al Nassr opponents and we can see how difficult Luis Castro in to improve the mentality of his players in a match, So I think this is very different from the ability possessed by Jorge Jesus as the coach of al hillal, although al nassr continues to accumulate star players in his squad but without the support of a qualified coach, of course they will continue to have difficulty in competing for the SPL title. 
neymar is the worst investment al hilal has made they must realize that but the contract has been formed and the only wise steps that al hilal can take is to play it safe to avoid violating the contract.
Buying Neymar isn't like an investment for Al Hilal because he is an old player and often gets injured. If Al Hilal wants to invest in a potential player, they must buy young players. And they must buy young players with no issue of severe injuries. Al Hilal must know the risk by signing Neymar, they may only waste money.For Al-Hilal money is not a problem but they can't get what Al-Nassr got by bringing Ronaldo to the club because the club is getting more famous, I can see in my country how many Al-Nassr Jerseys are the choice to have and it is very different from Al-Hilal by bringing Neymar, and that is very unfortunate.
So the aim of Al-Hilal's investment in Neymar is to make this club more famous, not just to be successful in the league by buying young players.
Al-Nassr here got lucky because the claim was an own goal made by Bassam in the final minutes of the second half, indirectly Al-Nassr was saved in this match, but it is true that this match was quite fierce with both of them having quite strong defenses and Al-Ahli got unlucky. It's quite difficult to catch up with AL-Hilal today, they have a perfect match and continue to win every match, AL-Nassr is not ready to compete at the top of the current season, two draws and 1 win is not bad capital, but this will be difficult if it continues like this for AL-Nassr.
I think Luis Castro has quite a lot of homework, because his team has not been able to display impressive results. In the three matches they played, two of them only produced minor points. Now, Al Nassr is in 7th place in the standings. As for Al Hilal, they showed good performance in their three matches and they were also productive in terms of scoring goals. On the other hand, Al Ittihad showed progress in their performance in their three matches. Under Laurent Blanc's guidance, Al Ittihad's performance has improved much, as has Karim Benzema's performance. In addition, the presence of Moussa Diaby provides a new color and contributes to his team. Currently, Al Ittihad is playing against Al Wehda, Al Ittihad is leading 5-1 from their opponent and the match is not over yet. It seems that under Laurent Blanc's guidance, Al Ittihad has the potential to be a tough competitor for Al Hilal.
Luis Castro does have a lot of work, his players have so far been lacking in making an attack and Ronaldo seems to have started to decline again if you look at his contribution even though he can stab but there are some movements that make him no longer a lion, only occasionally, his stamina has decreased greatly to be a hero, and look again how the midfield always does not make them have a clear pass, and sometimes miscommunication.
Al-Ittihad is indeed very good, they made the right transfer and built the team very well, the match against AL-Wahdi ended with a score of 7-1, they continue to collect goal wins and victories, now they are at the top of the standings because they have the most goals, while AL-Hilal and Al-Ettifaq are in second and third place with the same points only they have a few goals.
Source: https://sport.detik.com/sepakbola/bola-dunia/d-7540109/al-nassr-vs-al-ahli-tuntas-1-1-ronaldo-cs-diselamatkan-gol-di-injury-time/amp
we won't know whether Al-nassr will be champions or not in the SPL this season because in this season I see Al-nassr's strength, it seems like there are no surprising changes and it is proven that they have competed 3 times, only winning 1 match, namely against Al-Feiha. now Al-nassr only sits in 7th place in the temporary standings and of course hard work is needed to be able to compete with Al-hilal because Al-hilal is now in 1st place in the temporary standings and of course mentally it will definitely make Al-hilal enthusiastic to maintain its position. is ranked 1st.
Al-Nassr's last match against Al-Ahli, I thought Al-Ahli would be defeated by Al-Nassr, but in reality it was a shame that the match ended in a 1-1 draw and of course Al-Nassr couldn't get many points and to be honest, this will definitely happen. making some people disappointed with the draw result of the match.
I saw that Al-Nassr's defense in that match was still not good and I also saw that the opportunities that existed could not be exploited optimally by Al-Nassr's attackers, but of course Al-Nassr still had luck because if, for example, Al-nassr had not scored a goal, it would have resulted in Al-Nassr supporters were embarrassed because Al-Nassr would definitely lose but fortunately Luis Castro's troops were still lucky. In my opinion, Luis Castro must really train his men to be even better because of course if they lose again in the next match, it looks like Al-Nassr will find it even more difficult to win the title. In my opinion, Al-Nassr will win in the next match, what do you think? and honestly I hope Cristiano Ronaldo can win a trophy this season.
neymar is the worst investment al hilal has made they must realize that but the contract has been formed and the only wise steps that al hilal can take is to play it safe to avoid violating the contract.
Buying Neymar isn't like an investment for Al Hilal because he is an old player and often gets injured. If Al Hilal wants to invest in a potential player, they must buy young players. And they must buy young players with no issue of severe injuries. Al Hilal must know the risk by signing Neymar, they may only waste money.Ronaldo's condition is different. He has no problem with his body, he has no severe injuries. That's makes Ronaldo can play until above 40 years old. Meanwhile Neymar, he often gets injury, it is difficult for him to play with his best anymore. Moreover, Neymar can't live with a healthy way, this juts makes a smaller chance to play a longer time.
Yes, a player can play as long as he can prove himself fit. Ronaldo's case is completely different. He is still fully fit himself. Neymar faces a high number of injuries and his injuries are so dangerous that may create problem for future career. Ronaldo cannot be compared to him at this point. 
There are two teams that currently have good coaches: Laurent Blanc, coach of Al-Ittihad, was previously coach of PSG and Jorge Jesus, coach of Al Hilal, was previously coach of Benfica of Portugal and Flamengo, having won titles with both teams. And these two teams have a strong squad. So I see only these two teams fighting for the title.
Laurent Blanc became the coach of Al-Ittihad who proved his ability to formulate strategies with the experience he had gained while coaching top teams in major European leagues.
The Saudi Pro League is still a long way to go, but Al-Ittihad's good start in three matches this season deserves praise.
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