DUBAI // David O'Leary, the new manager of Al Ahli, has promised his side will play attractive, attacking football in the Pro League this season even if it means they do not bring the domestic league title back to Rashid Stadium in the Irishman's first year in charge.
Having signed a three-year contract, O'Leary, who was responsible for steering England's free-spending Leeds United to the European Champions League semi-finals in 2001, is well-aware his Dubai odyssey represents a sizable step "into the unknown". But after Ahli's mediocre campaign last term O'Leary admitted his principal short-term objective was stabilising the club, not winning trophies. Last season the club went through four managers and were still unable to finish higher than eighth in the league while they were dumped out of the Club World Cup by Auckland City, the New Zealand part-timers, in the competition's preliminary round,
"The aim for me is to get to know the league this year and start pointing the club in the right direction after a shocking season last year," said O'Leary, a former defender who holds the record number of appearances for Arsenal the English Premier League club. "For the history of this football club, winning the league five times is not enough - it's a poor return. We want to implement a winning mentality over the next three years. I don't buy into the fact we won the championship two years ago, what happened last year is of more significance to me."
New signings should help and O'Leary made Aristide Bance, the Burkina Faso international striker, his first Ahli purchase this week, adding to the glamorous capture of Fabio Cannavaro earlier this summer. Italy's 2010 World Cup captain arrived before the Irishman took over. "I had one pick, the other two [foreign player] places were taken, so if he is a success I will take the credit and if he's a failure I'll take the blame," O'Leary said of Bance. "He's my one pick and what appealed to me is he is very young - we've got a man that we can make a better player.
"I hope he stays here a long time, but he's also one that we could make a large, large profit on if he comes on well." O'Leary's influence, according to Bance, certainly aided the powerful hitman's decision to abandon top-flight German football for a stint in the UAE. "He is a good guy and I have known him for a long time," Bance said following a moon-lit Ahli training session on Wednesday night. "I know him and he knows me."
With only a week before the dawn of a new season, an absence of local knowledge is one thing O'Leary confessed could possibly hinder his progress at Ahli in coming months. To counter it, he plans to introduce lessons learned on more familiar shores. "I will only find out what my players are like after the first round of games," the former Aston Villa coach said. "That's when I'll know what I have to change, what I want to change and what we can try to change. I've been asked to create a [English] Premier League environment at the club, but in football terms we'll keep it on the floor.
"I am a football person whose philosophy is to try and not to concede and score as many as you can. When we haven't got the ball, we'll get it back as quick as possible and express ourselves." O'Leary expects the Dubai side's chief threats to come from clubs in the capital. The success of his foreign recruits aside, Ahli's new manager is pinning his hopes on developing Ahli's promising contingent of UAE players.
"From what I'm hearing, the big opposition - where the money is - is in Abu Dhabi. There are two or three really strong teams, but Al Wahda have a great team with lots of players in the national side," O'Leary said. "What's important is that the nucleus of our team must be national players - the best must come from the local players." emegson@thenational.ae
