Bottom of the table Muaither take on Al Wakrah in an early relegation fight on Saturday evening. Head coach Phillipe Birol gave his thoughts on the upcoming game.

Opening up the press conference Phillipe Birol is hoping his side can replicate their second half form against Al Sadd. “Wakrah are an interesting team. Every match we are getting better, we did very well in the second half against Al Sadd last. We will need that kind of performance against Al Wakrah.”

“It’s time to take points in this match. We can’t underestimate Al Wakrah they are a good team and have always been in the league. If we do our job well we can come away with a result” claimed Birol, whose side have yet to register a point this season in the QSL.

Birol also talked up his opponents noting the “Al Wakrah is not in good form. They have lost their games narrowly like us. They have good strikers, who can attack teams very fast. We will watch for this.”

The French coach also stressed how key this match was for his rookie side. “It’s an important game for our side; we have to get a result to keep us in the survival race.”

Birol ended the press conference reiterating that his side must avoid mistakes in defense against Al Wakrah. “We need to also focus on defense. We have gifted the side’s goals in recent games through defensive mistakes; we must clear these against Al Wakrah.”
 


As for Al Wakrah, they have only registered one point so far this term and head coach Murico Larriera is confident of taking some points from the match. “The game will be play is our number one game for taking points. We will face a difficult team in Muaither, who are not easy to play, despite being at the bottom of the table. “
“My team showed against Lekhwiya that we were are tough team. If we played like that against other teams, we could have picked up more points.  We need to push on our second half performance against Lekhwiya into this game” reflected the Uruguayan head coach at his side’s pre match press conference on Thursday morning.
Wakrah are currently in the relegation places, and the pressure is on, however coach Larriera was eager to stress he is working hard to improve the fortunes of the side. “The hardest pressure is the standards we put through me in the club. The best way to avoid pressure is to improve our performance in each game.”

Ending the press conference Larriera stressed that his side wants to improve and change the mentality at Al Wakrah. “The players are eager to show their quality and the hard work that they put in on training and in games. I want them to be confident and get a result against Muaither. The team has always been fighting relegation; the players and management are looking to change this. We will beat this by working together as one team.”