Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 79. (Read 127110 times)

Injury has been one major problem with Neymar jr both when he was in Barcelona and PSG,  I don't really think Neymar would want to retire at this age because of his injury, he will better want to choose to move to playe for a team that won't give him much of stress and, or hugely rely on him but to be more of a supportive player or coach player, and the Brazilian league will be a good option for him in this case

I also cannot deny that Al-hilal is not only superior in terms of the quality of their game, but they also have other advantages, such as the mentality of their players who always play and never give up. In fact, they are always able to turn things around in the end. As in the match against Al-Ahli, we know that throughout the first half Al-hilal was 1 goal behind. but in the second half Al-hilal managed to turn things around and make the match theirs. And yes, there is no doubt that their attack line can cover the shortcomings of their back line.

After achieving negative results in the last few seasons, of course we hope that the arrival of Stefano Pioli can have a positive impact on Al-Nassr, with his experience and also his ability to formulate strategies, of course we can see if Pioli has managed to balance the squad and improve al Nassr's performance, so far Al Hillal has dominated the competition in the SPL and with the changes in Al nassr current squad there is certainly a possibility if their can break the dominance Al-Hilal later.
Regarding Al-Hilal, although it looks like they have weaknesses in the backline, but I think the sharpness and also the impressiveness of their current attacking line is able to cover these weaknesses, besides that we can also see how big the mentality and also the unyielding attitude possessed by the current Al Hillal squad which precisly able to be a differentiator from other big teams in the  Arab League.

Correct. And that's the problem right now, namely, even though Al-Nassr's current strength looks better than before, it seems like winning the trophy from Al-Hilal will still be very difficult to do. But the chances do look better after Stefano Pioli came here. The Al-Nassr squad already looks better and more balanced than Al-nassr at the start of the season before Pioli arrived. And I hope Pioli can continue to improve Al-nassr's performance to be even better.

But I noticed something from Al-hilal at the moment, namely that they currently seem to have a slight decline in their back line. We can see all of this from every Al-Hilal match result, even though they always win, they also always concede.

Last season in the Saudi Pro League, Aleksander Mitrovic finished behind Cristiano Ronaldo in the top scorers list but it seems the Serbia international is determined to go a step better than last season by finishing as the top scorer this season. He already have 9 goals which is 4 higher than Cristiano Ronaldo and 2 above Karim Benzema who occupy the 2nd spot of the league top  scorers chat. Knowing how prolific Cristiano Ronaldo can be I'm sure Mitrovic is s very much aware that the Portuguese can overtake him anytime soon. Mitrovic is without doubt the most important player of Al Hilal at the moment and even if Neymar Jr's contract is extended, I don't think it'll stop Mitrovic from being recognized as a more important player than anyone else in the team.

I love Ronaldo but I don't think his recent goals has been that impressive to me. He has just being scoring penalty after penalty and he isn't allowing others to play the penalty which is why everybody keep saying that he's selfish. If he allowed Sadio mane to play the penalty, maybe he would had gotten a hat trick in this game. I know that the penalty came before Sadio mane got his goals but Ronaldo should allow others to have a chance at becoming the talk about individual and not just him. I think Ronaldo was still given the man of the match for this game and not Sadio mane that scored two goals. Ronaldo scored and assisted but Sadio mane played better and got 2 goals for his contribution to the game.

Indeed. So far, Al Hilal looks quite strong to maintain their unbeaten record. In 6 matches, they won all the matches, without a draw or a lose. Mitrovic as the striker also becomes sharper than previous season, this is just another factor to support the unbeaten record. However, I think there should be time that Al Hilal can make a mistake, they won't play with 100% of their strength in each match. I personally think they may keep their unbeaten record but there should be a chance of a lose, too.

Al Hilal could beat Al Ittihad and Al Ahli. But they still didn't face Al Nassr. I think Al Nassr is the only team that can beat Al Hilal now. Al Nassr is very obsessed to beat Al Hilal because they always failed to beat Al Hilal. With a new coach, it is expected to beat Al Hilal for the first time. 

It indeed looks like it and they average a 3-1 result per game currently. That's impressive and one of the biggest matches will be against Al-Nassr in about 3.5 weeks. If Al-Hilal wins that game away from home, I wonder which club is supposed to stop them. Maybe Al-Ittihad, but that was it.

The thing is that Al-Hilal can afford to have some draws every now and then as it is unlikely that their two main competitors will play a perfect season from now on. They have already beaten Al-Ittihad 3-1 and they had 17:6 shots in that game, which says it all. Cancelo was a great transfer for them. I liked him already when he was still playing in Europe and I think he left the elite too early, but it's his decision of course. For Al-Hilal he was a jackpot as he has the technique and everything else to dominate almost any player in the SPL.

Aleksandar Mitrovic is a reliable player at Al Hilal, last season alone he was able to score 28 goals from the 28 matches he played, that means he scored 1 goal in every match if averaged out, that is a good statistic for a striker. With or without Neymar, it has no effect at all on Al Hilal, because without the presence of the former Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain player, they still performed well and were very pampering. Last season they were able to end the league without a defeat and this season they are also the only team that can get full points from all the matches they play. I wonder if they will be able to record the same record as last season? if there are no significant changes from other clubs and they are still consistent, then it is not impossible that what they achieved last season will be repeated this season.

As I said before if there is no other team that has the potential to beat Al Hilal except Al Nassr. But the problem is Al Nassr still has to do a lot of things and the most important thing is just strong consistency.
For example, always being able to get points in every match even though it is only 1 point but at least Al Nassr does not have a big point difference. With consistent performance, Al Nassr can wait for Al Hilal to make a mistake by losing in a particular match.
But believe it or not, actually the defeat of a popular team can usually be defeated surprisingly by a weak team.

It seems like we have the same guess, when Al-Ahli scored a goal against Bono in the 12th minute. I thought, wow, this will be Al Hilal's first defeat. Moreover, Al Hilal was unable to equalize in the first half of this match. Entering the second half, Al Hilal increased the intensity of their attacks and also improved their team's game. As a result, they were able to make a comeback and win at Al-Ahli's home ground. As you said, the two teams as Al Hilal's rivals still shadow them with a fairly thin point difference. Which can be interpreted as, the competition is still valid in the fight for the Saudi Pro League trophy. Moreover, the competition has only been running for 6 weeks. There are still many matches that these teams will play, consistency will be needed by the teams in the top four of the Saudi Pro League standings. We don't need to predict which team will become the Saudi Pro League champion this season, it's more fun to follow every development of every match that is presented. Maybe, there will be a surprise and we will never know.

Mitrovic played very well for Al Hilal last season and he does not stop his good performances in this season. Before appearances of Ronaldo, Benzema, Neymar in Saudi Professional League, I did not know about Mitrovic. When Ronald joined this league, I knew about two strikers who competed with each other for the league best goalscorer, Talisca and Hamdallah but Mitrovic suddenly challenge Ronaldo for that personal award in the last season.

Top goalscorers

Hamdallah won three best scorer awards since 2018 - 2019 season, but now it's time for Mitrovic.

I also hope that this season Al-nassr can make Al-hilal lose, but of course we won't know whether Al-nassr will be able to beat Al-hilal or not, but yes, I also hope that by changing the coach Al-nassr can make Al -nassr got up and was able to defeat Al-hilal. However, it is certainly not easy for any team to beat Jorge Jesus' troops and it is certainly possible that this season Al-Hilal will have great potential to achieve another unbeaten record like last season. and of course Jorge Jesus will definitely fight with the maximum to make Al-hilal become champions again this season.

what you say is true, it seems that it is difficult for any team to beat Al-hilal and indeed if Al-nassr hopes for a draw when Al-hilal plays, of course that hope will potentially come true, for example, always getting a draw when competing, of course that could indeed come true. .

but yes, this season, Al-hilal's strength is still good and of course, if for example Al-hilal could be defeated by Al-nassr or an SPL team then it would definitely become popular news. but if you look at Al-hilal's last match against Al-ahli, of course with a score of 2-1, of course there weren't many goals scored by Al-hilal and the goal was only from a penalty kick, of course it makes me personally see that of course there is still hope for any team. holding Al-hilal to a draw and it is not impossible that Al-hilal can be defeated.

It is a fact that Neymar is no longer in good physical shape as he was in years past. After this injury that kept him out of the field for many months, it seems to me that his only option will be to retire. He will not be able to play well for Al Hilal. He was out of action for 11 months. He has always been a player with injury problems, but now that he is 32 years old, things have gotten worse to the point that even in the Saudi league, he is not physically fit enough to compete. And honestly, I highly doubt that the Al Hilal coach will put him in the starting 11. They will probably put him in when the team is winning by many goals so that he can play for a few minutes.

The most important player in Al Hilal is Aleksandar Mitrović



He has already scored 9 goals and leads the list of top scorers. Al Hilal definitely does not need Neymar. Even for marketing reasons, Al Hilal already has a lot of attention, which is why in my opinion it would be better if Al Hilal did not renew Neymar's contract next season.

S. Mané and Cristiano Ronaldo's great chemistry helped Al Nasser secure a big 3-0 win over Al-Orobah. Al-Nassr's points table has changed a bit after securing a big win in their sixth match and they are currently third in the points table with 14 points. Al Ittihad is in the second position with one point more than Al-Nassr and Al Hilal is currently at the top of the points table with four points more than Al Nasser. If Al Naser performs a little better in the upcoming matches, they will have a chance to move to the second position in the points table and they will be able to compete with Al Hilal. However, Al-Hilal will be stronger up front as their key player Neymar Jr. will soon be on the field for Al-Hilal.

Al Hilal are back just like last season winning matches back to back as if they don’t have a worthy opponent to lose to, i don’t see them losing any match and it will be difficult for a team to overtake them and win the league. We might have two tough teams trailing them but with a 3 points difference i don’t think that it will be easy to catch up with a team that doesn’t lose matches but at least it is good and more interesting having two teams challenging them for the title, Al Ittihad and Al Nassr will try to challenge them but let’s see how far they can keep up.

We all thought Al Hilal will lose to Al Ahli after conceding first but they turned things around as soon as possible and took back the lead again to win the match, this is the spirit of a champion and that is the more reason why i don’t doubt them in winning the league again.

Maybe Al Ittihad and Al Nassr will try to stop them from repeating it but it will be difficult, they are likely to repeat same unbeaten run this season again since they don’t seem to be any match for them.

This win helps Al-Nassr to continue a title competition against Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal with very close gaps with two competitors. Ronaldo scored again for his club and this goal is from a penalty that can be considered as an easy goal. However in football, taking responsibility with a penalty shot is not easy with many players. Cristiano Ronaldo with his experience and some failed penalties in his career, made a perfect shot, scored a goal and made people think it is an easy goal. In fact it is not too easy and other players can miss that penalty if they don't have strong mentality and enough experience on this spot.

Mane scored two goals in this match too and in this season, both Ronaldo and Mane played well, but Al-Nassr need to have better performances from Talisca.

Saudi Professional League table
List of goal scorers

Mitrovic has another season on fire and he has 10 goals now and he has 3 and 5 goals more than Benzema and Ronaldo.

This is a victory that Al Nassr can get, they can secure 3 full points which they should have gotten with a weaker level of opponents than them. Ronaldo and Mane are the figures who can bring Al Nassr to victory with the 3 goals they can create.
Ronaldo also continues to collect goal after goal, until now he has created 5 goals, he is in 3rd place as the top scorer in the Saudi Pro League this season. With his age that is no longer young, this is a pretty good statistic that he can provide with his team. His teammates at the time he was at Real Madrid who now play for Al Ittihad can also contribute, yes that is Benzema who has now created 7 goals.

Al-Nassr football team played well in this match and they won the match one sided and they did 3 goals in this match. Ronaldo did first goal of the match and he did goal at penalty . Mané did 2 goals and he did first goal at 29 minutes and he did 3rd goal at 71 minutes . He made the match one sided and bent the match to their sides. Al-Nassr team is at top and have 14 points and Al-Orobah team is at 11 position with 7 points.The performance of Al-Nassr team was good and they proved that they are winners because all players of that team are working good and they worked as a team and they gave more passes and their possession percentage was good.

It is not impossible for Al-Hilal to repeat their undefeated record from last season. So far, they have shown consistent performance and continue to maintain a positive trend. Al-Ahli failed to trip up Al-Hilal, even though they have pretty good squad depth. This defeat has pushed Al-Ahli down to 10th place, while Al-Hilal has strengthened their position at the top of the table. The competition for the trophy this season is arguably getting fiercer, with Al-Ittihad and Al-Nassr likely to continue pressing Al-Hilal until the end of the season. Expectations for Al-Nassr are now slightly higher after they recruited Pioli, but it will take extra effort if they aspire to snatch the trophy from Al-Hilal hands, I think it won't be an easy task.