An injury-plagued Al Duhail will hope to secure their second consecutive win when they take on Al Arabi in the QNB Stars League today. The former champions, who expectedly will go head-to-head with Al Sadd for the domestic honours, left it late in their opening fixture as they beat Qatar SC 2-1.
But the return of midfielders Louis Martin and Assem Madibo – who sat out of the opener while serving the suspension for receiving red card in the Sheikh Jassim Cup loss to Sadd – will bolster the team.  Head coach Rui Faria, however, will continue to be without Mohamed Moussa and Mehdi Benatia, who are injured.
The team’s hopes once again rests on captain and attacking midfielder Yousef Msakni, who took the field only at the start of second half against Qatar SC, and scored an equalizer in the 88th minute. The Tunisian will team up with Qatar forward Almoez Ali, who scored the winner last week.
Faria said he expected a tough match against Arabi. “We face a tough task against a team that is well organised and has technical staff capable of doing a great job. They’ve players who can quickly reach the opponents’ goal. We’ll focus on what we can do on the pitch,” he said yesterday.
The Portuguese manager feels injuries to key players have created problems for his side. “The absence of some key players will affect any team and that’s what happened to us in our game against Qatar SC. The emergence of new players is definitely a positive sign, but that alone won’t compensate for seniors’ absence. We made good efforts and put up a strong performance. I was satisfied with the performance, but if we were able to score goals from the opportunities that we had, there would’ve been another scenario,” he said.
Faria was confident Iraqi teenage striker Muhanad Ali, who joined Duhail this summer, will show his potential soon. “I would say that he’s under pressure, especially because he is in the focus of media. He needs more time to adapt. He works well in training and I know he’ll soon settle into his stride,” said Faria.
Meanwhile, Al Arabi coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said it will be a difficult challenge to face Duhail. Hallgrimsson’s men won their opening match of the campaign against Al Ahli last week and the Iceland coach will hope his team can pull off an upset at the Al Janoub stadium.
“Our preparations were normal. The team is preparing for the entire season, not just for one game. I’m very happy with my players’ performance in the pre-season and also during our victory against Al Ahli in the first week,” Hallgrimsson said.
“Al Duhail consist of outstanding players even though they didn’t start well this season. It’s going to be difficult challenge. For us, the most important thing is not to make mistakes that cause losses. For me, it’s important to play according to the team’s capabilities, we’ve good attacking players who deal well with high balls, so we used this technique in the previous game and we succeeded in that,” he added. 
Meanwhile, Promoted side Al Wakrah and Qatar SC will open the week’s fixtures, with both targeting victory as they had lost in the first round. Al Wakrah had lost 1-4 to Al Sadd and will be eager to make an impression in the top flight. On the other hand, Qatar SC had given a mighty scare to title contenders Duhail before conceding two late goals. 
Qatar SC coach Carlos Alos Ferrer wants his team to focus on finishing matches, starting with the game against Al Wakrah. “Our loss to Al Duhail was sad because the goals came from a lack of focus in the last minutes. I told the players we should focus on the game from the beginning till the last. I’m happy with the performance because players did what I asked them, but lack of focus cost us dear. That made me sad,” he said
Al Wakrah coach Marquez said his side will work hard to beat Qatar SC. “We’ll work hard to beat Qatar SC. I wish it would be the beginning of victories after our loss to Al Sadd. Against Al Sadd, we played with 10 players from the 16th minute. Since then, some weaknesses appeared in our defence. We worked on them in between,” said Marquez.

Fixtures 
Today: Al Wakrah vs Qatar SC (17:10, Al Sadd Stadium); Al Duhail vs Al Arabi (19:20, Al Janoub Stadium) 
Tomorrow: Al Khor vs Umm Salal (17:10, Al Janoub Stadium); Al Rayyan vs Al Gharafa (19:20, Al Sadd Stadium)  
On Saturday: Al Ahli vs Al Sailiya (17:10, Al Janoub Stadium) and Al Shahania vs Al Sadd (19:20, Al Sadd Stadium)
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