Romarinho (second from right) celebrates his goal with his El Jaish teammates yesterday.

Sports Reporter/Doha


El Jaish moved within one point of table toppers Al Rayyan with a 4-0 thrashing of Al Arabi in the Qatar Stars League yesterday.
The Sabri Lamouchi coached side hardly broke sweat in a lopsided match that saw them score twice in each half to consolidate second spot with Al Arabi hardly managing a decent shot at goal.
Chasing their first-ever QSL title, El Jaish now have 23 points from nine matches, while Al Rayyan have 24 from eight. The leaders can pull four points clear if they defeat Qatar Sports Club today.
The match meandered along for the first half hour with both teams lacking spark before Khalid Abdulrouf opened the scoring with a powerful shot from about 10 yards outside the penalty area in the 31st minute.
The opening goal, however, had a demoralizing effect on the Al Arabi defence, which began to look increasingly chaotic with goalkeeper Masood Zarayi constantly in the firing line without any support from his defenders.
Four minutes later, El Jaish exploited Al Arabi’s defensive woes with Murad Naji enjoying unhindered progress inside the penalty area and passing the ball to Wagner Ribeiro.
Ribeiro, who could have had a crack at the goal himself, however, let Romarinho (Romario Ricardo Silva) do the honours and the Brazilian made it 2-0 with an easy strike from close.
Al Arabi failed to come up with any workable plan in the second half and allowed their rivals to dominate play.
And sure enough El Jaish found the third goal when Ribeiro found Sardor Rashidov with a defence-splitting pass and the Uzbek international covered decent ground before slipping the ball past goalkeeper Zarayi in the 54th minute.
Mohamed Methnani then made it 4-0 for El Jaish with a powerful shot from outside the area in the 77th minute.
Meanwhile, Al Gharafa defeated Al Sailiya 3-1 to end a five-match winless streak. This slump had also resulted in the club parting ways with their head coach Pericles Chamusca.
Gharafa thus took the field under the guidance of their reserve team coach Habib Sadeq, and scored the opening goal of the game in the 25th minute when the unmarked Masoud Shojaei headed home from a cross by Aden Ali.
All the good work was undone however, when Gharafa defender Alimahdi Ali hit the ball into the back of his own net in the 36th minute.
Al Sailiya seemed to finally have gotten a foothold in the game but then just four minutes later Gharafa restored their lead.
Alain Dioko latched onto a through ball and fired a shot only to see it hit the post but Abdelaziz Hatem was there for the rebound and he managed to poke it into the back of the net for the second goal of the night for the Cheetahs  in the 38th minute
Just before the end of the first half, Gharafa increased their advantage when in the 45th minute Dioko, who has been under the spotlight for his inability to reproduce the form of last year, finally found the back of the net. The relief on the striker’s face was visible. This is his second goal this season.
The first half ended with Gharafa in a commanding 3-1 lead.
The second half saw both teams creating chances but neither team could find the back of the net. It was a well-fought win for Gharafa, who now are sixth with 14 points
Sailiya on the other hand will have to find a way to plug their porous defence which has leaked in 20 goals in nine matches so far this season.