The Saudi Pro League reaches matchday 24 of 34 this week with crucial fixtures taking place across the weekend, from Thursday to Saturday. Below are the key talking points going into the games.
Toney needs to do his talking on the pitch
Ivan Toney may be second-guessing his World Cup spot with England this summer, but there is no doubt he is the form player in the Saudi Pro League right now.
Sadly, much of the talk around Toney this week isn't about his goalscoring exploits, but his churlish response to a clip involving him that went viral following Al Ahli’s narrow 1-0 victory over Damac on Monday.
Tempers boiled over on the pitch after Damac had a late leveller chalked off by VAR. Toney was involved in a confrontation with Damac defender Jamal Harkass, who approached the Al Ahli striker and appeared to try to kiss him several times.
At the final whistle, Toney made a point of celebrating and goading the Moroccan defender as tempers threatened to boil over.
Responding to a clip of the incident, Toney posted a vomiting emoji alongside a message that left nothing to the imagination. “I've never smelt a breath so bad,” Toney wrote.
The comment was cutting, but hopefully puts an exclamation mark on one of the most bizarre flashpoints of the SPL season.
It's a shame for both players, but Toney in particular. Though he didn't score against Damac – Franck Kessie's 37th-minute goal settled the tie – it was one of the few blanks Toney has drawn in a prolific period since the turn of the year.
In Ahli's previous game, against bottom club Al Najma, Toney was again at his best despite missing a first-half penalty. It was his first failure from the spot in 25 attempts in his SPL career.
“It shows I’m human,” Toney said after the 4-1 win. “Yeah, it happens. Everyone can miss a penalty.”
The disappointment didn't last long. A second-half hat-trick, including a penalty, sent Ahli on their way to a comfortable victory.
“Everyone can miss penalties, but it’s how you bounce back,” said Toney, who has 18 goals in his past 13 league games. “I bounced back today and got the hat-trick.
“I wouldn’t sleep easily because of the missed penalty; I wouldn’t sleep for a while as I would be thinking about it. But if someone told me to miss one penalty for a hat-trick, I'd take it.”
Toney's treble kept him ahead of the other Golden Shoe hopefuls. The former Brentford player has now banged in 23 league goals in 21 appearances this term, one better than Julian Quinones of Al Qadsiah and three ahead of Al Nassr's Cristiano Ronaldo.
Victories over Najma and Damac also saw Ahli leapfrog Al Hilal at the top of the table.
Ahli will get the chance to open up a four-point lead over closest rivals Al Nassr if they can overcome another team struggling at the wrong end of the table, Al Riyadh, on Thursday.
Al Hilal look to get back to winning ways
When Al Hilal beat Al Nassr on January 12, they enjoyed a seven-point cushion over their rivals at the top of the standings.
Fast forward six weeks and that lead has turned into a one-point deficit to Al Ahli, with Hilal third behind Nassr but level on 55 points.
Simone Inzaghi's side dropped points for the second successive match on Wednesday, held at fifth-placed Al Taawoun despite taking the lead through a Ruben Neves penalty.
That was the Riyadh club's third draw in their past five games. In the same period, Nassr have won five while leaders Ahli have won four straight.
The arrival of Karim Benzema on transfer deadline day was supposed to be the final piece of the jigsaw, the player that sealed Hilal's march towards another domestic triumph. The Frenchman's transfer from Al Ittihad caused consternation among many in the league, not least from Cristiano Ronaldo, who was frustrated by both perceived favouritism towards Hilal and his own club's lack of January recruits.
Those fears have yet to play out, though. Benzema marked his debut in Hilal colours with a hat-trick in the 6-0 thrashing of Al Okhdood on February 6, but has not scored since.
Hilal failed to make their numerical advantage count against Ittihad, despite playing more than 80 minutes with an extra man, adding to the angst that Inzaghi's side are running out of steam as we enter the final stretch of the season.
They face Al Shabab on Friday, by which time Ahli could be four points clear of the Riyadh giants. With an AFC Champions League last-16 first leg on the horizon next week, Inzaghi needs to reenergise a squad in danger of slipping away.
Rodgers not getting carried away
Surprise package Al Qadsiah can count themselves among the title challengers, despite what manager Brendan Rodgers says.
Rodgers' side sit fourth in the league and only three points off leaders Ahli before Thursday's fixtures.
Qadsiah are unbeaten in 14 league games since the Northern Irishman took charge in late December. Monday's 4-0 win over Al Ettifaq in the Eastern Derby was their fourth win on the spin.
“I thought we were so good in the game,” Rodgers said afterwards. “We were playing our second game in four days, but our intensity, especially in the first 30 minutes, our technical level, and also against a very good team who score a lot of goals and can give you problems.”
The team's charge is being led by Quinones, the Mexico striker whose 22 league goals place him one behind Toney and two ahead of Ronaldo in the scoring charts.
Rodgers was keen to emphasise the collective rather than single out one individual for the team's purple patch of form.
“I always say that the team I'm trying to build here is a team that starts very fast and finishes very strong,” he said. “To be able to do that, you need to have a strong physicality. And our mantra is that we keep going from the first whistle to the final whistle.”
Ahead of Saturday's fixture against Al Taawoun, Rodgers refused to be drawn on any title talk. “Win the next one. That is my only ambition.”
