'A point gained, not two lost': Al Ittihad vow to use last-gasp draw to spur title bid | OneFootball

Al Ittihad manager Laurent Blanc said he viewed his side’s injury-time draw at Al Khaleej on Wednesday as a point gained, rather than two lost in the race for the Roshn Saudi League title.

Goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic, meanwhile, urged the RSL leaders to use the result as motivation in their bid for the top-flight trophy.

A Konstantinos Fortounis penalty deep into stoppage-time at Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd Stadium had deprived Al Ittihad of a fifth consecutive RSL victory, the Greek’s 96th-minute conversion cancelling out Abdulrahman Al Obud’s second-half goal that had appeared to seal an away win.

The 1-1 draw meant that, by the conclusion of Matchweek 22, Al Ittihad’s advantage at the top of the table over second-placed Al Hilal had been cut to four points.

The current champions, Al Hilal had rebounded the day previously from Saturday’s potentially defining defeat to Al Ittihad in the Saudi Clasico with a 5-1 victory against Al Kholood. The chase for the championship was well and truly back on.

Speaking after the dropped points in Dammam, Blanc said: “We don’t deserve the victory. I am upset because you did the most complicated [thing] to score a goal, so it was not easy to keep the result when we didn’t play very good tonight.

“So 1-1 is the score. In my opinion, we didn’t lose two points tonight; we take one point, and we deserve to take one point. Because Al Khaleej played well and Al Ittihad played bad, and that’s it. It’s one point.”

Al Ittihad were without several key players on Wednesday night, including their two-goal hero from the Clasico, Steven Bergwijn, midfielder Houssem Aouar and defender Abdulelah Al Amri.

“Today we missed three very important players,” Blanc said. “Of course, everybody saw that. Going to explain and understand why [we didn’t play well], you play after four days.

“First, in my opinion, my team was tired because we did, not a big, but a big, big, big performance against Al Hilal. This is first. And me, I look that the team Al Khaleej is very good.”

Al Ittihad goalkeeper Rajkovic echoed his manager’s sentiments, saying: “We didn’t play at our highest level; we were tired after the big game against Al Hilal. But this happens, this is football. We can’t win all the games. We took one point; we can be happy.

“But we have a lot of games ahead of us. It’s OK. The next game in our house in three days [Sunday's Matchweek 23 encounter against Al Okhdood in Jeddah], so we’re going to prepare to continue on our winning path.”

On whether Wednesday’s result would negatively impact Al Ittihad’s title challenge, the Serbian said: “No, it’s going to motivate us, because it shows us that we cannot win all the games easy. So we need to give all the time in every game 100 percent.”