Al Arabi coach Heimir Hallgrimsson spoke to the media ahead of their 2020-21 season QNB Stars League Week 3 match against Al Gharafa.

“Of course, we are not satisfied with the loss (against Al Ahli in Week 2) and I can say after the last match that we were not only disappointed, but ashamed of our performance. And the only thing we can say is we are sorry for that performance and hope we will not perform like it again as we did in the first half against Al Ahli, who played the match well.

“Al Gharafa are not easy opponents and unfortunately we have a lot of absences. Our new players did not get time to get used to our philosophy and our way of playing, and they did not play for a while, so they are not quite fit. But we still have to play almost every four days, so we cannot perform a lot of tactics, and we can only train a little to prepare for the next match.

“We have a very difficult match against Al Gharafa. I expect that we put up a much better performance than we did against Al Ahli.

“I don’t think we retreated. Yes, we did not win, we tied Al Khor in the 94th minute. We could not avoid the shot. Therefore, we lost two points in the first round, then lost against Al Ahli,” said Hallgrimsson.