Abu Dhabi: Al Jazira are beginning to resemble Newcastle United in more than their shared black-and-white kits.
But it’s not Alan Pardew’s strugglers of the current English Premier League season that their performances to date in the Arabian Gulf League echo, but Kevin Keegan’s swashbuckling side of the mid-1990s.
Like Keegan’s great entertainers’ – David Ginola, Les Ferdinand, Alan Shearer et al – Eric Gerets’s side attack with abandon and the mentality that "if you score five, we will score six".
The only surprise about another goal feast from the Pride of Abu Dhabi on Thursday night was the fact that top scorer Mirko Vucinic, the Arabian Gulf League’s leading marksman with 10 goals, was not on target in a 3-2 victory over Al Nasr.
Fourth win in seven matches
Yet Vucinic was still instrumental in Al Jazira’s fourth win in seven matches, which took them second in the table, with two converted assists to Al Mabkhout, which supplemented Manuel Lanzini’s second-half winner.
The match promised to be an evenly matched affair given that, at the start of the day, both sides had 11 points – Al Nasr two places ahead of Al Jazira in sixth on goal difference.
Al Jazira were also out to avenge a 1-0 Arabian Gulf Cup defeat away to their opponents earlier this month and bounce back from their first league defeat of the season last week, 4-2 at the hands of champions Al Ahli.
In a game of few chances initially, Ali Mabkhout might feel he should have done better after pouncing on a misplaced back pass and shooting straight at Ahmad Shambiah in the Al Nasr goal.
In reply, Mahmoud Khamis’s tricky run and cross from the left caused the home side’s keeper Ali Khaseif to spill the ball for a corner at the near post.
Yet the AGL’s top scorers before the start of play with 19 goals in six matches were always the more likely to strike first and did so when Mabkhout rounded off a fine move.
After 19 minutes, he swept home Mirko Vucinic’s chested knockdown from close range after Yasir Mattar’s lofted ball into the penalty box.
Al Jazira were dominant, passing with pace and incision, and looked likely to overwhelm the visitors.
Yet Ivan Jovanovic’s men grabbed an unexpected equaliser given the balance of play when Tariq Ahmad’s crisp side-footer found the bottom corner eight minutes before half-time after good work from Brett Holman on the left.
Relentless attack
Al Nasr launched attack after attack in response, five-goal top scorer Ebrahima Toure’s wild attempt at an overhead kick sending the ball well over the bar.
But in first-half injury time, Al Jazira’s greater potency was exemplified when they ruthlessly took the lead through Mabkhout’s second of the game.
Argentinian playmaker Lanzini had won the ball on the edge of the box, played it to Vucinic, and the ex-Juventus man’s perfectly weighted through ball was fired home with aplomb by the impressive Mabkhout.
The two-goal hero was immediately to the fore at the start of the second half, tumbling in the penalty box and appealing in vain for a spot-kick after a challenge from Ahmad Al Yassi following yet another assist from the selfless Vucinic.
But it did not take long for the attacking verve of Eric Gerets’ men to reap further dividends when they made it 3-1 after Mabkhout’s cross from the right was swept home in style by Lanzini on 50 minutes.
Al Nasr huffed and puffed in reply, but carried little threat going forward, the industrious Holman their main source of creativity.
The home side were content to soak up pressure rather than push for another goal as the game petered out, and they were made to pay for resting on their laurels as substitute Ivan Trickovski’s vicious strike from Toure’s assist whizzed into the bottom corner.
Gerets responded by withdrawing an exhausted-looking Vucinic, replacing the Montenegrin with midfielder Hassan Ameen in a bid to provide more defensive ballast.
With five minutes’ injury time being played, a nervy finish was in store, the hosts clung on to win and go one point behind leaders Al Wahda.
Throwback
It was just like 1995/96 all over again, when Newcastle produced unstinting entertainment and invariably outscored their opponents.
Yet if Al Jazira are to go one better than Keegan’s conquistadors – Newcastle failed to win any silverware that unforgettable season despite the endless excitement they stirred – they will have to shore up their porous defence.