Dubai: Sharjah have parted company with Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro just four games into the new Arabian Gulf League season.
A 3-2 defeat away to Hatta on Friday leaves The Kings second from bottom on one point from four matches after they followed an opening 0-0 draw at home to Al Nasr with defeats away to Al Dhafra 2-0 and at home to Al Wasl 2-1.
They had also lost 2-0 at home to Emirates and drew 3-3 away to Shabab Ahli Dubai Club in the Arabian Gulf Cup.
The club tweeted late on Sunday: “The board of directors decides to exempt the coach Peseiro and mandated the national coach Abdul Aziz Al Anbari.”
Al Anbari will oversee this Saturday’s league home tie with Shabab Al Ahli Dubai before a permanent replacement is found.
Peseiro joined Sharjah in January replacing Greek coach Giorgos Donis while the club were 10th in the table. He managed to lead them to a ninth place league finish last season before the club merged with Al Shaab over the summer, and wholesale changes were made.
Foreigners Digao, Adrian Mierzejewski, Gelmin Rivas and Chikashi Masuda were all offloaded, while Vander Viera, Welliton, Cesar Pinares and Ryan McGowan were brought in.
Peseiro is the second managerial casualty this season after Macedonian coach Gjoko Hadzievski was replaced by Syrian boss Nizar Mahrous at Hatta last week following their 4-0 league defeat away to Emirates.
Hadzievski had ensured a 10th place finish and survival in Hatta’s first season in the top flight last term and also reached the semi-finals of the President’s Cup. However, he started this league season with three straight defeats away to Shabab Al Ahli Dubai 4-0 and 3-0 away to Al Ain before the Emirates loss. Hatta were bottom of the league until Friday’s 3-2 win over Sharjah saw them jump to 10th in Mahrous’ first game in charge.
In the Arabian Gulf Cup they had also drawn 2-2 away to Al Ain and 0-0 at home to Al Nasr under Hadzievski.
Hatta retained foreigners Samuel Goncalves and Adrian Rapotan this season but replaced Rafael Silva and Nikolai Topor-Stanley with Fernando Gabriel and Omar Midani.
