Al Sadd produced a dominating performance to defeat 10-man Umm Salal 4-1 in their Qatar Stars League encounter at the Jassim bin Hamad stadium today.

Sadd’s first match since the restart of the league had ended in a 2-2 draw with Al Wakrah.

Then midweek they just about managed to win their Asian Champions League qualification match against Bahrain’s Al Riffa in a dramatic, nail biting penalty shoot-out (11-10). These results had prompted a few raised eyebrows regarding the form of the mighty wolves.

During the pre-match press conference, Umm Salal coach Bülent Uygun was asked if his team, who went into yesterday’s match having thrashed Al Shamal 5-0, could take advantage of Sadd’s lack of form. Uygun had brushed aside that observation saying, “Maybe for you Sadd is not too strong a team right now but they have good players and international players with lots of experience.”

His words proved to be truer than he would have hoped for. However Salal made things difficult for themselves when Waleed Ahmad was shown a straight red card in the 13^th minute for a naïve foul inside the box. Sadd’s Khalfan Ibrahim converted the penalty to give his team the lead as the Wolves never looked back.

Having been reduced to 10-men, Salal was always chasing the game and Sadd were finding it easy to dominate as they doubled their lead in the 33^rd minute through Khalfan once again.

The second half didn’t see any change in the script. Being a man short is a disadvantage for any team and when you are playing against a team like Sadd, it becomes an almost impossible task. Three minutes after the start of the second half, Sadd midfielder Hassan al-Haydoos scored the third goal for his team to put his side into cruise control.

And then in the 69^th minute it was the turn of skipper Nadir Belhadj to seal the victory as he made it 4-0. Salal got a consolation goal in the 85^th minute through Turk Tuncay Sanli.

The early red card definitely changed the outcome of the game but still Sadd ensured that they took full advantage of the situation and reiterated their title ambitions. The wolves move back into first place in the Qatar Stars League.