Al Duhail coach Christophe Galtier spoke to the media ahead of their 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League Week 10 match against Umm Salal.

“We will play our league match against Umm Salal after our AFC match and our players need recovery, but we will prepare the team for this game in the required manner. We will communicate with the medical staff to find out the players available to us, and the next stage of the league will witness intense successive matches.

“I watched the last match between Umm Salal and Al Gharafa to analyze it and find out their strengths. If we want to improve our ranking, we must score points in this match. I know that we will face a team that is very good and that is why we must play with all seriousness and caution, especially since they have distinguished strikers like Andy Delort whom I have trained at French club Nice and he was the team’s top scorer.

“The month of December will be crowded with matches and we, in Al Duhail, are always facing such matters, as we will lose a number of our international players and we know the extent of the responsibility. We will try to adjust to the difficulties and we will benefit from the coming period in preparing our players  Ibrahima Diallo and Luiz Martin as Edmilson continues to be absent,” said Galtier.

Al Duhail player Mohammed Al Nuaimi said, “I have confidence in Al Duhail’s ability to come out with a positive result in our next match against Umm Salal.

“A strong match awaits us and we will play it in order to achieve victory, benefiting from the great morale boost after we succeeded in achieving victory in our last match in the league against Al Rayyan, as well as our match in the AFC Champions League against Tajikistan’s FC Istiklol in order to continue on the path of victories.

“We know that we will face a team that has a strong attack line. But on the other hand, our team has players with distinguished defensive abilities who are able to avert the danger of Umm Salal and come out of the match with a positive result that will improve our ranking.

“The lack of participation certainly has negative effects on any player, especially in terms of technical and psychological readiness and harmony with team-mates, but with time and continuous participation, the player reaches the peak of his physical and technical readiness.”