Midfield enforcer Azizbek Haydarov has insisted everyone at Al Shabab remains firmly behind under-pressure boss Caio Junior and they will prove it during Tuesday night’s daunting trip to Arabian Gulf League champions Al Ain.
The Hawks finished an excellent third during the Brazilian’s debut campaign in 2014/15. But a run of six defeats in their last seven matches has seen them eliminated from the Arabian Gulf Cup at the semi-final stage, miss out on the 2016 AFC Champions League group stages in a play-off and slump down to seventh in the top-flight standings.
This alarming spell has led to rumours about the coach’s job, a situation Haydarov, 30, is unhappy about.
He said: “The players are still behind the coach. We are working and we understand we are not in a good moment.
“For this one, we want our coach to bring us up. Sometimes in this situation your psychology can go too far down. The coach will take us up. It is like he could give us a tablet to regenerate us and to wake up.
“Now, the coach can give us a gift and show us. We want to play and win. Everybody wants this. We want the coach, Caio Junior, to take us up. When the coach says something, it is the best for all the players. We want this.”
A shake-up in January saw Shabab sell 16-goal target man Jo to big-spending Jiangsu Suning in the Chinese Super League, replacing him with slight forward Juninho Potiguar from Moldova’s Sheriff Tiraspol. The decision has been one of many queried during the club’s rancid run.
“When you have some problems, people start to talk: ‘bad coach, bad players, bad technical committee’,” said Haydarov, who joined five years ago. “No, everybody is bad in this situation. When we start to win, everyone will close their mouths – that is football.
“I have too much respect for the coach and all the players. We will work.”
Arguably the most-challenging fixture in the UAE awaits Shabab this evening, when they travel to leaders Al Ain. They have proven unstoppable at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, winning their last 17 league matches there.
Despite the contrast in form, Haydarov vowed to push for an upset. He said: “Al Ain is a good team and have good foreigners and locals. We understand for us it is not an easy game.
“We understand we go there and the game will be more difficult than any other game. Also, we never go to lose games – we always fight. Football is beautiful. Everybody can think we will lose, but we will give our best to get a result from God.”
Their task has been stiffened after host supremo Zlatko Dalic promised to crank up the excitement after a narrow 1-0 triumph at Dibba Al Fujairah last week.
He said: “I promise the fans of Al Ain that they will see an improvement in the team’s performance and we will provide our best level after the last match. I have watched the meeting with Dibba Al Fujairah twice on the video. We do not give a bad performance and we created a number of opportunities, but we did not score at the right time.
“Perhaps our performances have been slow in some cases. But that was because the organisation for the opposing team in the field was good. One of our most important goals is to restore our style and we are well aware that our mission on Thursday will not be easy.
“But if we take the initiative to score in a timely manner, it will force our rival to give us the required space in the field. This will facilitate our mission in the game and we will work at the same time to avoid falling into the trap of making individual errors.”
