Lekhwiya take on Sailiya in round nine of the QSL. The match will take place this Thursday at the Lekhwiya Stadium. Lekhwiya are unbeaten in the league so far with eighteen points and sit third in the table. The Cops will be aiming for the three points against a Al Sailiya side who are currently in the relegation zone.

Djamel Belmadi, the head coach of Lekhwiya believes that Sailiya will be looking to bounce back, “The game is against Sailiya, a team that doesn't have the best attack right now. Last year they had good results and this year they are struggling. It will be difficult to play against them as four teams are going down so no one wants to lose points. All the big teams are finding it hard to get results. It’s not easy as we saw last week teams like Sadd, Jaish and Rayyan had tough matches.”

Speaking about his team’s defensive issues, Belmadi added, “It’s a mental thing, we score first then we concede. It’s frustrating but I think it's something easy to correct. In the game against Umm Salal we had 65% possession and many more shots but just because we were switching of often we were conceding. We need to be switched on and be concentrating.”

“I don’t see any connection between last season and this season. Like every game it will be a difficult as they have a good coach and good players. I don't think about last year,” added the Algerian tactician.



Al Sailiya are struggling for form in the league as they only have six points from eight games. The Peregrines will be aiming for a positive result in order to turn their season around.

Sami Trabelsi, the head coach of Al Sailiya thinks that Lekhwiya have the best attack in the league, “It’s a short time between two matches and we need to make some corrections. We are facing the best attack in the league and they have the best scorer in Yusef El Arabi. They have a problem in defence and I hope we can take advantage of that.”

“We are still not happy or satisfied, we can still do better. Efoulou is a good player and game by game he gets better. He has the talent and can do a lot of things. The best thing from our team is that even if the referee makes mistakes we continue our game and don’t show reaction,” added the Tunisian head coach at the press conference on Wednesday.

Speaking about the team’s mental state Trabelsi added, “Sure we are anxious it’s the ninth round. We are like last season when we had seven points now we have six. I think we need more solutions in the attack. We are suffering from the absence of two important players every week. We are asking for good players to replace our players who left the team.”