Dubai: Al Jazira returned to the top of the Arabian Gulf League table with a 4-2 win at home to Al Wasl on Friday.
Al Ain had temporarily taken the league lead 24 hours earlier with a 4-1 win at home to Sharjah on Thursday, but Al Jazira restored order the following day, having come back from 2-1 down.
Despite having been reduced to 10 men after the half hour when Waheed Esmail was sent off for a second bookable offence, Al Wasl’s Ederson Alves and Caio Correa scored either side of the interval to cancel out Jucilei Da Silva’s early opener.
However, Mirko Vucinic, Jonathon Pitroipa and Ali Mabkhout turned the game back into the home-side’s favour with their second half contribution.
Vucinic is now seven goals clear at the top of the top scorer’s charts with 16 goals this season and Mabkhout is second on nine.
Al Ain, who have now gone eight games unbeaten, still have two games in hand over league leaders Al Jazira due to their Asian Champions League semi-final involvement earlier in the season. This makes Al Jazira’s narrow one point lead all the more fragile moving forward, particularly as Al Ain play the first of their two games in hand away to Al Shabab on Monday. The second will be slotted in on February 4 at home to Fujairah.
Elsewhere on Friday, Emirates Club pulled clear of danger at the foot of the table with a 1-0 home win over bottom-club Ittihad Kalba, thanks to Luiz Enrique’s lone effort 20 minutes from time.
The result dumped more pressure on the east coast club, who have only won one, and drawn one in 13 matches so far this season.
