Leaders Al Sadd and Al Duhail continued to be engaged in a neck-and-neck battle after the conclusion of Week 7 in the QNB Stars League even as the fight for the third and fourth positions hotted up.

Al Sadd and Al Duhail moved to 16 points with victories, but the former have a goal difference of +28 compared to the latter’s +13.

Al Sadd defeated Qatar SC 5-1 and Al Duhail got the better of Al Ahli 2-1.

Al Ahli and Qatar SC stayed ninth and 10th in the table with six and four points respectively.

Al Sailiya defeated Al Arabi 2-0 to stay third with 15 points while the latter slipped from fourth to sixth position.

Al Rayyan stormed back into contention, after losing the Qatar Clasico to Al Sadd in the previous round, by beating Al Shahania, with Rodrigo Tabata scoring the all-important goal. The Lions have 14 points.

Al Kharaitiyat sprang a surprise by defeating Al Gharafa 2-0 as The Thunders collected their first points in this season’s QNB Stars League and The Cheetahs suffered their third successive defeat that saw them stay seventh with seven points.

The victory was a huge boost for Al Kharaitiyat who had lost all six matches and replaced Tunisian coach Nassif Al Bayawi with Moroccan Abdelaziz El Amri after the third defeat.

Al Kharaitiyat moved to 11th spot with three points, one more than Al Khor who lost to Umm Salal 0-1.

Umm Salal thus completed a hat-trick of wins and moved up from sixth to fifth with 13 points, whereas Al Khor went down to the bottom as they remained on two points.

The week’s action saw a total of 15 goals as against 23 in Week 6.

Al Sadd’s Algerian striker Baghdad Bounedjah continued to be the top scorer with 14 goals, followed by Akram Afif, also of Al Sadd on eight and Al Duhail’s Moroccan ace Yousef El Arabi on seven goals.

Bounedjah and Akram contributed one goal each to Al Sadd’s big victory over Qatar SC, while El Arabi struck both goals for Al Duhail against Al Ahli.

Moroccan striker Rachid Tiberkanine, who scored a brace for Al Sailiya against Al Arabi, became the joint fourth-best scorer, along with Umm Salal’s Yannick Sagbo, with six goals.