Manager Quique Sanchez Flores’ troubles at Al Ain deepened last night with a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Al Nasr in Dubai.
The Boss slumped to another loss, leaving them 18 points behind league leaders Al Ahli following an uninspiring performance that will not have gone down well in the club’s boardroom.
Ibrahima Toure was the only scorer in a mostly dour fixture, heading in a second half goal from a corner. The result was compounded by Mirel Radoi’s sending off for a vicious elbow on Salah Al Hussain in the final minute.
Sanchez Flores hasn’t been able to turn around Al Ain after a disastrous start to the season that saw coach Jorge Fossati sacked before a ball was kicked.
Al Ain officials are known to be unhappy with the current state of affairs – winning once in the last six league games – and aren’t afraid to lay the blame on the head coach, although it is believed that the Boss’ strong run in the President’s Cup has divided opinions.
The Spaniard hasn’t lost faith yet though and believes his current situation is much like the one he faced with former club Al Ahli, where he won the Etisalat Cup despite poor initial league form in his first season.
“Nothing is easy,” said the Spaniard. “But I have the feeling that we can still do something.
“The condition of the team is not the same as last year; we have lostimportant players, we are in big competitions with different players. We have to accept the circumstances.
“This is very similar to the first year I had in Al Ahli. We struggled a bit in the league early on but then had a good cup run, we had a lot of players out then.
“The circumstances are different but I accept the difficulties, this is not the way of Al Ain and we are fighting every day. The players are very sad when they lose, we have to clear our heads.”
Al Ain were without Omar Abdulrahman again, who is currently in Rome receiving surgery that will sideline him for at least a month.
They had the better of the game against a mundane Al Nasr side but failed to make their chances count.
The visitors had the only real chance of a dull first half, with Asamoah Gyan climbing to meet a Radoi corner but his unmarked header was easily saved.
The tempo was raised in the second half though. Al Ain pushed forward, creating chances for Gyan and Hilal Saeed, but the cracks were beginning to appear, especially on the counter attack.
Brett Holman should have given Al Nasr the lead when he made it to a speculative long ball but hooked his shot just wide of the goal after rounding the onrushing Khalid Essa.
With 26 minutes left, the game was sealed by Toure before Radoi finished off Al Ain’s misery with a cynical elbow on Al Hussain.
After a poor run of results, that saw three straight losses in January, Al Nasr boss Ivan Jovanovic was happy to overlook the performance and concentrate on the result.
“What was important was the win,” said the Serb. “But when you come from bad results you need the result rather than the performance. When you don’t have a good performance and yet you win, it is important.
“This was a big result for us today,” Jovanovic added.
