Marked for Chris Smalling
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match24 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Al-Fayha
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Mikel Villanueva falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match24 Oct 2026
The run is over for Al-Fayha
6 matches without defeat, and then Al-Riyadh. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Rayyan Enad
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A season average of 7.24 with 6 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Al-Fayha are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Fahad Al-Harbi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Al-Fayha dressing room was either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match10 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 7‑0 against Al-Nahda, and it could have been more.
Match12 Oct 2026
Al-Fayha up to position 2
25 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad12 Oct 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Jason scores twice — 8.39
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match10 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Al-Fayha right now
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Mikel Villanueva was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 10.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match10 Oct 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Al-Fayha and Al-Nahda, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Al-Fayha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chris Smalling was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match3 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Al-Fayha right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Paulo Oliveira was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Mikel Villanueva falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
$1.9M of the owner's money at Al-Fayha
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Market5 Oct 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Chris Smalling has his answer from Al-Fayha; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 385% of everything Al-Fayha earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match3 Oct 2026
Al-Fayha keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Sep 2026
Al-Fayha make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al-Fayha have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Al-Fayha
Mikel Villanueva and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Al-Ta'ee, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Silvère Ganvoula was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.48. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Rayyan Enad
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Al-Fayha are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Fahad Al-Harbi kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Sep 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.49, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Al-Fayha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chris Smalling was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Sep 2026
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Match19 Sep 2026
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Yassine Benzia in the middle of it, and Al-Saudi Al-Watani unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Omar Colley, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Fahad Al-Harbi could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
Al-Ra'ed come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al-Fayha did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
Al-Ra'ed pay $210.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Jason
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market31 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Al-Fateh have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mohammed Al-Dowaish. The answer from Al-Fayha has not changed — yet.
Match29 Aug 2026
Late, late show earns Al-Fayha a point
Minute 91, against Al-Ettifaq, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.98 on the card, and the Al-Fayha support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Fashion Sakala has come up in conversations Al-Fayha were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Chris Smalling commits to Al-Fayha for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Al-Fayha
Chris Smalling and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market3 Aug 2026
Alfa Semedo wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al-Fayha hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Al-Fayha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikel Villanueva was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al-Fayha, another week without a signature from Chris Smalling.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Silvère Ganvoula’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Al-Fayha are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Rayyan Enad knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al-Fayha, and both men came out saying it was fine.