O’Leary relieved after grabbing full points

David O’Leary was a relieved man after Al Ahli managed to grab full points against Dubai in Week Six of the Etisalat Pro League at home on Friday. “I think we can play a lot better but under the circumstances when you have so many people away over last nine or 10 days, I thought overall three points was more important than actually playing better which actually we can,” he said. Al Ahli won 3-1 with goals from Ahmed Khamis, Faisal Khalil and Pinga while promoted Dubai got a consolation goal in added time through Abou Baca Camara. “Good luck to them also. I think they deserved to score the goal. I thought we could have scored more goals as well. In fact both teams missed chances. It’s a good three points,” added O’Leary whose plans to introduce Ismail Al Hammadi had to be changed after the enforced double substitution of skipper Fabio Cannavaro and Obaid Khalifa at half time. “They weren’t tactical changes. It was more for the knock Cannavaro got and Obaid had a leg injury. I wanted to try and play Ismail for longer but I was left with one had to be careful just in case somebody got injured,” he said. Al Hammadi came in 15 minutes before the end and set up Pinga’s strike with a clinical cross. “I just wanted him to get some confidence, to go out and play in a senior match. It was nice to have him back in the league that way,” said O’Leary who felt the game got more open in the second half giving them more space to add to their solitary goal in the first half. Dubai coach Egyptian Ayman Al Ramadi was livid with his players for conceding easy goals. “The first two goals were stupid mistakes. It was a very long move and defenders gave space to strikers,” he said. He also slammed his strikers for failing to get on the scoresheet earlier. “They missed lot of chances. This is not time to make mistakes,” he said. O’Leary will take lot of positives from this match despite struggling against the bottom team in the league. “Football is about wining matches. We won a match tonight. It was nice to go and win. I think certain games you got to win but you got to go and prove that. We went out and did that today,” he said.