Pitso Mosimane will hope to go to bed tonight having gone past one of the significant hurdles that will influence his relegation escape mission in the Saudi Pro League.
Abha play Damak at home on Friday (17h00) in a match that they must win to swing their survival fate into their own hands.
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With victory against Damak, Abha will move out of the relegation mud into 14th place on 31 points, jumping above Al Akhdoud (28 points) and Al Riyadh (30 points).
After this weekend’s fixtures, there will then be three games remaining for all the teams, with Abha travelling to Mosimane’s former employers Al Ahli on May 18, before they then host Al Khaleej (May 23) and finish off against bottom-placed Al Hazm (May 27).
Abha have been so awful on the road that they have not won a game in 25 league matches played away since the beginning of last year.
However, they did win away at Al Ahli in the King’s Cup at the end of October.
For all their struggles on the road, Abha have been impressive at home with four wins and one draw in six games since Mosimane took over at the beginning of the year.
This has meant 13 points in the bag from a possible 18.
In their last home match, they accounted for the huge scalp of defending champions Al Ittihad to take a step forward in what has been a zig-zag relegation battle for Mosimane.
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This is Mosimane’s first ever relegation-relegated job since he took over as head coach at SuperSport United in October 2001.
His league finishes at SuperSport were second, second, third, fourth, seventh and sixth, before he then left to work at SAFA in 2007.
Upon returning to club football, he finished 10th after taking over midway through the 2012/13 season at Mamelodi Sundowns and has cruised since then.
The former Bafana Bafana coach joined Abha at the beginning of the year on a deal running up to the end of the season on May 27.
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