“The team suffered from difficult circumstances during the game against Arab Contractors so the game’s result came against us,” Soares told the post game press conference.

Ahly's Egyptian Premier League hopes were dealt a severe blow after they failed to break down a resilient Arab Contractors side in a 0-0 draw in Cairo on Saturday.

The Reds thought they had finally netted a precious winner with three minutes remaining after Hassan headed home following a goalkeeping blunder, but his effort was ruled out for offside on defender Rami Rabia, who was deemed to have interfered in play. 

“I do not know why the referee canceled the goal we scored, moreover the opponent’s players did some actions away from the fair play,” the Portuguese coach added.

The 47-year-old coach also blamed the league’s tight schedule, believing that it affected the players performance helped prevent a victory.

“We played 10 games in a month and we will play another ten games in the next month, it is not happening [anywhere else] in the world,” Soares said.

Ahly's mounting injury problems took a turn for the worse when wingers Ahmed Abdel-Kader and Salah Mohsen were forced off in the first 10 minutes, forcing coach Ricardo Soares to make a couple of unscripted substitutions.

“We have a long list of injured players and we made more substitutions that affected the game’s result,” the Ahly coach added.

The draw leaves Ahly with a mountain to climb if they are to keep alive their hopes of catching leading duo Pyramids FC and Zamalek.

Ahly lie third in the table with 55 points, four behind Pyramids and eight adrift of leaders Zamalek, who both played a game more with seven rounds remaining.

The Cairo giants are scheduled to face Pharco FC in the 28th matchday of the Egyptian Premier League on Wednesday.

(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)