Al-Hilal's Win Over Al-Faisaly Masks Ongoing Issues
Nasser Al-Shamrani did not let the scoreline fool him.
Al-Hilal opened their Roshn League campaign with a 4-2 win over Al-Faisaly, but the club legend believes the result disguised problems that are still very much alive inside Simone Inzaghi’s team.
Speaking on the “Dawrina Ghair” programme, Al-Shamrani argued that “the Boss” fell short of the standard their star-studded squad should be setting. The same recurring errors, he warned, are still there, and Inzaghi’s staff now have a serious job on their hands to iron them out.
Bono the saviour, Koulibaly under scrutiny
If the scoreline flattered anyone, in Al-Shamrani’s eyes it was Al-Hilal.
He singled out Yassine Bono as the man who kept the evening from turning awkward. The Moroccan goalkeeper, he said, played a decisive role in limiting the damage against Al-Faisaly, his saves covering up several of the cracks that appeared once again in Al-Hilal’s structure.
“Bono’s beauties are too much for Inzaghi,” Al-Shamrani remarked, underlining how the keeper’s interventions repeatedly pulled Al-Hilal out of trouble. With a goalkeeper of that calibre, he stressed, the team enjoys a wider margin for error than most.
Al-Shamrani also turned his attention to Kalidou Koulibaly. The Senegalese defender, he pointed out, is central to how this Al-Hilal side is built. His level does not just reflect on him personally; it ripples through the entire team, especially in a squad that expects to compete for every trophy and leans heavily on defensive stability to do it.
Same mistakes, same warning
The four goals against Al-Faisaly did not convince Al-Shamrani that anything has truly changed. From a technical and tactical standpoint, he insisted, Al-Hilal showed nothing new. The same issues that have dogged them under Inzaghi, he argued, were still clearly visible, and the positive result should not be used as cover to ignore what is happening on the pitch.
For him, the message is urgent: these flaws must be fixed quickly. The level of competition in the league this season will be intense, and the same mistakes that were survivable against Al-Faisaly could prove fatal against stronger rivals, even if the wins keep coming for now.
That leaves Inzaghi facing an early, sharp test. Al-Hilal have the start they wanted on paper. On the pitch, though, the bar has been set higher. In this dressing room, and in this league, three points are no longer the only measure of success.
