Thais hope to share spoils with Saudis

Opponents' potent attack worries Ishii

With an eye on a place in the knockout stages of the AFC Asian Cup, Thailand are hoping to blunt the potent Saudi Arabia strike force when the two sides meet for their final Group F game Thursday night.

Former champions Saudi Arabia will enter the match at Doha's Education City Stadium as heavy favourites.

In the other Group F game, Oman will take on Kyrgyzstan.

Thailand, who have four points after two matches and trail leaders Saudi Arabia by two points, will be gunning for a draw which would help them seal second spot in the group.

Oman have only one point to their credit but can still wrest the second spot from the Thais with a victory on Thursday night in case the War Elephants suffered a heavy loss to the Saudis in their last outing.

The top two teams from each of the six groups qualify automatically but also going with them are the four best third-placed teams.

Thailand head coach Masatada Ishii openly admitted at a pre-match press conference in Doha on Thursday that he was keen to maintain a clean sheet for a third game in a row.

"Saudi Arabia are among the favourites this year and they are here with the aim to win the tournament," said the Japanese tactician.

"They are a strong team loaded with top-quality players and are very dangerous on the attack.

"We will be playing more defensively than the previous two games because we need to stop them from scoring. But at the same time, we will try to create openings and score as well.

"We are not sure how the results of matches in other groups will go, so we have to be ready for this game with Saudi Arabia."

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia coach Roberto Mancini has come under criticism for his team selection at the Asian Cup but the Italian coach said on Thursday that his policy is to pick young players so they can gain experience as he tried to build a team.

Saudi Arabia arrived in Qatar under a storm cloud of team selection after Mancini said three players opted out of the camp -- a claim the players denied.

"My policy is that the players who are ready to play will play. I have 26 players. Some are famous, others are young, but if you win it's as a team, not because of one player," Mancini told reporters ahead of Thursday night's game.

Despite the murmurs of discontent on the outside, Mancini said the players are in good spirits in the camp as they look to win their fourth title and their first since 1996.

"I've managed this team for four months. Sometimes it's not enough, you need more time. But we've improved a lot in four months and we can improve in the future," he said.

"Can we win? I don't know, it's a long road but we want to try.

"We had a lot of chances in the last game and didn't score enough, we have to improve this. But it's important we're able to create chances. After that, probably we will score."

Mancini also denied claims he said Saudi Arabia do not have a chance after naming Japan, Iran, South Korea and Australia as favourites last week.

"I only said there are four teams -- Japan, Korea, Australia and Iran -- who are very high in the rankings and they have more chances to win. But I never said we can't win," he said.