Alex Brosque is resigned to leaving Al Ain at the end of the season, but says he would like to stay in the UAE for another season at least.
The Australia international arrived in the Garden City in September 2012 and enjoyed an encouraging debut season, scoring 17 times in all competitions as the Boss defended their league title. Brosque has found goals a little harder to come by this campaign but he is the club’s second highest scorer with six goals, and is considered a key member of Quique Sanchez Flores’ squad.
“At the moment it’s sort of up in the air,” Brosque, whose contract is up this summer, said about his future.
“We were approached in September or October last year about a new deal but as of yet we’ve received nothing. I’d like to try and tie something up, as a player it’s hard to play not knowing where you’re going to be from one year to the next.
“So, definitely in the next couple of months I’d like to tie something down. I would have liked to stay at Al Ain but I haven’t been approached as of yet.”
Brosque is hopeful he won’t have to move too far from the Garden City though.
“I’m happy here and my family are settled in Al Ain but either way I’d like to stay in the country,” he added.
“My family is really enjoying it here and we’ve got some friends here so I think I’d like to stay here for another year or two and then see what happens.”
Al Ain have never really looked like adding a third successive league title to their trophy cabinet, but Brosque does not think that is Sanchez Flores’ fault.
“Everybody improved on last year, they came out and improved their squads,” he said of the Boss’ title rivals.
“I don’t think the start we had helped. If you start well and get a couple of victories in a row, teams start to fear you and it changes the way they approach games against you. I think last year teams were beaten before they even came to play against us a lot of times.”
Brosque, who revealed the squad were “100 per cent” behind their Spanish coach, added: “When you start to lose that fear factor it’s very hard to get back. In all honesty I think you have to earn it back and I don’t think we’ve done that at all.
“When there have been times to really knuckle down and fight and scrap for a victory I think we’ve found it hard to do that.”
Meanwhile, Al Jazira right-back Khalid Sabeal has been banned for one game and fined Dh10,000 following an altercation with Al Dhafra coach Dr Abdullah Misfer.
