Al Duhail coach Sabri Lamouchi spoke to the media ahead of their 2020-21 season QNB Stars League Week 12 match against Umm Salal.

“The match against Umm Salal will be difficult because we will face a good team that performs distinctly in defence and attack, a team that relies on counter-attacks, possession of the ball and working to put the opposing team under pressure and not giving it sufficient space to move and make attacks.

“Our recent results are positive, but we still aspire to achieve the best. I am happy with what our players offer in the matches and their level of thinking and performance as we strive to be better, play stronger matches and keep winning the next matches.

“Conceding goals is not desirable. We are not used to conceding goals this way and we must work to avoid it in the future.

“It goes without saying that the psychological state of players is bad when they suffer defeats. In football, positive results are better and the results that we achieved are better as well,” said Lamouchi.

Al Duhail player Sultan Al Breik said, “Our first game of the season was against Umm Salal and we managed to win, but now we are facing them in different circumstances. There is a change in the technical staff and certainly this will be positive for us.

“The team always plays in an offensive manner and the teams that play against us mostly play defensively, but we have players with high technical capabilities who can deal with this situation.

“All big teams have a decline in performance and this is what happened to us when we lost some matches, but we succeeded in returning to our level and achieved victories. Now, we have matches in which we will work strongly to achieve victory in order to retain the league title.”