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The champions for 3 of the last 4 seasons in Saudi Arabia Al Hilal acquired Neymar recently to add to a bunch of other high-profile summer signings. Their next opponents Al Ettifaq also beefed up their squad with some quality names from Europe and with Steven Gerrard as head coach. Both teams are making strong starts to the season. Who will prevail now when they cross swords? Here are our Al Hilal vs Al Ettifaq predicted lineups and all the latest team news.
Photo by Icon Sport
Contents
The game is scheduled for Monday, August 28th and will be played atย Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Hilal. The kick-off time is 19:00 GMT. Now, let’s look at all the team news and also at our Al Hilal vs Al Ettifaq predicted lineups.
Al Hilal vs Al Ettifaq Predicted Lineups and News
Before we go into more details regarding the Al Hilal vs Al Ettifaq possible lineups we’ll give you the latest team news for each team and what that means for their overall strength.
Team news: Al Hilal
Al Hilal lost the title they won in the 3 previous campaigns last season. Hungry to return to the top of the pile coach Jorge Jesus was given big money and he spent it on several top players. The ex-Chelsea and Napoli centre-back Koulibaly, arguably the best midfielder in Seria A Milinkovic-Savic and the Wolves playmaker Ruben Neves are just some of the names that have joined Al Hilal already. Not satisfied with ‘only’ that Al Hilal added Neymar and Mitrovic to their ranks most recently.
Al Hilal beat Abha 3-1 away from home at the start of the campaign thanks to Malcom’s hat trick. They then had a slight blip with a home draw but on Thursday normal proceedings resumed with a 4-0 away win vs Al Raed. In that last game, the latest new signing Mitrovic celebrated his Saudi debut with a goal.
Centre-back Hyun-Soo Jang has been nursing an injury recently. He has yet to play. Also, two of the big summer signings Koulibaly and Neymar won’t be available due to injuries. Another of the top players Milinkovic-Savic sits this one out suspended. Even without those the squad is stuffed with talent and the newest addition to it the ex-Fulham striker Aleksandr Mitrovic might be leading the attack from the off. In that case, Malcolm will drop to play in the number 10 position.
SS22 ๐ซก#AlHilal ๐ pic.twitter.com/hPNoAJzG2Q
โ AlHilal Saudi Club (@Alhilal_EN) July 12, 2023
Al Hilal Predicted Lineups (4-2-3-1):
Al Owais – Al Shahrani, Al Bulayhi, N. Al Dawsari, Abdulhamid – Neves, Kanno – S. Al Dawsari, Malcolm, Michael – Mitrovic
Team news: Al Ettifaq
Al Ettifaq brought the Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard to be their new manager as the club began aggressive investment in top talent from Europe. One of Gerrard’s first signings was his ex-Liverpool teammate Jordan Henderson, who has also become Al Ettifaq’s new captain. So, the English feeling in the middle of the Saudi desert is pretty strong and Al Ettifaq have big targets this season.
Anyone fancy a cuppa? ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ โ#Ettifaq pic.twitter.com/4uXCSdHe24
โ Ettifaq Club (@Ettifaq_EN) July 27, 2023
Al Ettifaq showed they will be serious players in the race for the top 3 positions with their 2-1 away win vs Al-Nassr in round 1. Ettifaq came from behind to claim this win, with their cause admittingly helped by the fact that CR7 was missing injured. Another solid display in round 2 brought a 2-0 away victory vs Al Hazem.
However, on Thursday the first points were dropped in a frustrating 1-1 home draw vs Al Khaleej. Had to come from behind in this match with Vitinho scoring his 3rd goal in as many rounds to save the point.
Al Ettifaq are likely to use the same front 3 as in the last round. Especially, with all of the three new forwards already scoring. The team’s new captain Jordan Henderson might not start after playing the full 90 minutes on Thursday. He is still recovering from a minor knock. In Ozdemir a quality cover is available.
Al Ettifaq Predicted Lineups (4-3-3):
Victor – Abdulrahman, Tisserand, Hendry, Al-Khateeb – Al-Ghamdi, Ozdemir, Hazazi – Quaison, Dembele, Vitinho
Will Neymar play for Al Hilal?
The big new signing of Al Hilal Neymar is nursing an ankle injury and unfortunately for his team, he is set to miss the next 4 weeks while he recovers from it.
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