One team that has fallen behind this season is Al-Ahli. Similar to the case with the three teams mentioned, they are also funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. And they have some big names in their squad (Roger Ibañez, Roberto Firmino, Édouard Mendy, Franck Kessié.etc). At the moment, they are trailing at the 8th position in points table, with teams like Al-Taawoun and Al-Qadsiah ahead of them. Anyway, the season just got started. We still have plenty of matches remaining.
Yes, this season Al Ahli is slightly less competitive than the other big teams in the Saudi Arabian League. Maybe this is caused by poor player balance. The reason is that in the transfer market last summer, Al Ahli did not bring in many new players with good quality. Al Ahli only brought in 2 players who in my opinion have quite good quality, these players are Ivan Toney from Brentford and also Alexander from Flumenense. Apart from that, in my opinion, the purchase of these players could be said to be inappropriate, especially the purchase of Ivan Toney. The reason is that Al Ahli already has Firmino in the striker position, so Ivan Toney is actually not really needed from that point of view. Apart from that, the mistake Al Ahli made this season was loaning Allan Saint Maximin to Fenerbahce. Even though Allan is a very good left winger at Al Ahli. So Al Ahli should not loan Allan to Fenerbahce, because currently his influence is quite felt on Al Ahli's left wing line. The reason is that currently there are no players who can be relied on in that position, because currently Al Ahli only has one player who plays on the left wing, namely Sumayhan Al Nabit. In my opinion, Sumayhan is not able to make Al Ahli's left wing line good at the moment. So in essence Al Ahli's current problem lies in the balance of players it has. Therefore, if Al Ahli wants to compete at the top of the Saudi Arabian League standings again, their squad must be immediately improved.