Al Jazira’s Ali Mabkhout has had a scintillating February…
Al Jazira forward Ali Mabkhout has been nominated by AFC (AsianFootball Confederation) for the title of Player of the Month in the West Asian Leagues for February. The winner will be decided by the fans who can vote for their favourite player.
Mabkhout has nominated along with some big names like former Arsenal player Santi Cazorla (Al Sadd), Argentina international Ever Banega (Al Shabab FC), former Swansea City striker Bafetimbi Gomis (Al-Hilal), Al-Riffa’s Mohamed Marhoon, Muhammad Marmur (Tishreen), Hammadi Ahmed (Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya), Khaldoun Al-Helman (Al-Khalil), Ala Al-Din Daly (Al-Arabi).
Mabkhout was in a rich vein of form throughout the month of February for his side Al-Jazira. He scored nine goals and provided three assists in just four matches in the Arabian Gulf League.
In the first match in February, he scored a hat-trick against Al Dhafra in a 5-1 out. All the goals came in the second half and took just 21 minutes to strike thrice. Mabkhout followed it up with another hat-trick, this time against Al-Ittihad Kalba. Riding on his three goals, Al-Jazira won the match with a mammoth scoreline of 6-0.
In the next-match against Bani Yas, he continued his scoring streak and netted the second goal of the match which turned out to be a vital one as the match ended 3-3.
However, his best performance came against then-league leaders Sharjah FC. He gave a tough time to the opposition center backs Hamad Jassim and Shahin Abdulrahman with his skill and guile. He scored two goals which helped Al-Jazira win the match 3-0 and also displace The Kings from the top spot.
Mabkhout is expected to face stiff competition from Al-Hilal forward Gomis who has racked up seven goals in February. He scored a poker against Al-Ain, a brace against Al Ittifaq and added another to the tally against Al Fateh.
Whereas, Cazorla scored an injury-time winner for Al Sadd against Al-Arabi and Al Shabab’s Banega has three goals and four assists to his name.