Undefeated Umm Salal takes on Al Sailiya on Saturday evening, looking to maintain their early season form. Head coach Bülent Uygun gave his thoughts to the media on Thursday morning at the pre match press conference.

Opening up the press conference, Uygun reflected on the draw with Al Shahania. “The game against Al Shahania last was disappointing. We played to win and we wasted too many chances to win.”

“We have had some fitness issues with our players lately. Yannick Sagbo and Anderson Martins have not been playing at one hundred percent. However they are getting better, and this will be shown in our improved results in the next few weeks.”

Focusing on this weekend’s opponents Uygun noted; “ Al Sailiya are a good team. They are not in good form at the moment, and only have one point from three games. We are playing to win, and hoping for an entertaining game. Make no mistake my side will be looking to get all three points.”

Ending the conference, the Turkish tactitian reaffirmed his side’s target. “The target has always been the top four, we are willing to do our best to reach the top for. As a coach all I can do is to improve the players in the team and reach our target with Umm Salal.”

  

As for Al Sailiya, they picked up their first points of the season last time out with a hard fought draw against QSL champions Al Rayyan. Assistant coach Amine Frekah is expecting a similar performance from his side.

“The game against Umm Salal is important; we are targeting our first win this season. We are playing a strong side, which are tactically aware and have yet to lose this season. Umm Salal have strong players, we have considered that this week in training. ” Admitted the assistant coach who was covering in the absence of Sami Trabelsi.


Despite having only one point this season, Frekah believes his side is going in the right direction. “In each of our previous games we have improved. The third game we played well especially with 10 men against Al Rayyan and got a positive result. So now the target is to get our first win of the season against Umm Salal.”

“We have done defensively with only three goals conceded from set pieces . However we need to improve ourselves in attack having scored one goal, but we have done very well defensively. This is a target for us against Al Sailiya” explained Frekah when asked about Al Sailiya’s shortfalls in front of goal this season.

Al Sailiya will be without Bahraini striker Faouzi Aaish who saw red against Al Rayyan however Frekah can cover for the absence.  Faouzi is a big loss for us, but we will focus on the team. We have young players to cover for him and make an impact this season.”