Egyptian giants Ahly have been hit with the news that five key players will be missing Thursday's Egyptian league opener against El-Entag El-Harby due to various injuries.

"Rami Rabiea, Hossam Ashour, Sayed Moawad, Sherif Abdel-Fadil and Walid Soliman are all confirmed to miss the El-Entag El-Harby match as they all still recovering from their injuries," Ahly's doctor Khaled Mahmoud told the club's official website on Tuesday.

Rabiea and Soliman are suffering from knee injuries, while Moawad, Abdel-Fadil and Ashour have muscular issues.

Ahly face obstacles

After their recent failure at the Club World Cup in Morocco, Ahly are hopeful they will turn their fortunes around in the new season of the Egyptian league, but the current absentees could jeopardise this mission.

"We are preparing for the new season amid very difficult circumstances as we suffer the absence of some key players due to injuries. I hope these conditions will not affect us negatively," coach Mohamed Youssef said on Tuesday.

"We will depend on some players of the youth team in the coming period to cover the absence of the injured players.

"I have asked the club management to speed up the required contract renewals to avoid missing new players and also to identify the positions that need reinforcements," concluded the African Champions’ coach.

Ahly will be already suffering for a while from the gap left by star Mohamed Abou-Treika who recently decided to quit football, but the technical staff hope new striker Moussa Yedan can fill the gap.

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