Steven Gerrard pleads for January signings at Al-Ettifaq and urges board to be ‘ruthless’ with transfers… with the Saudi side winless in almost two months

Steven Gerrard called on Al-Ettifaq’s board to be ‘ruthless’ and make ‘significant changes’ in the January transfer window with pressure mounting on him. 

Al-Ettifaq are winless in eight matches across almost two months and sit eighth in the table – one place lower than where they finished last season. 

That’s despite notable summer investment, with Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum, Demarai Gray, Moussa Dembele, and Jack Hendry all being drafted in. 

However, the four clubs majority owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund spent even more lavishly and Gerrard has urged his club’s top brass to loosen their purse strings to catch up.

He said: ‘We need to show in this window, and also the summer window, that we mean business and we want to be competitive at the top of the league, and not where we are at the moment.

Al-Ettifaq have slipped to eighth and haven’t won in eight games despite their summer spend

‘It’s a collective thing – the players here and now need to give more, and people need to step up and, at the right time, we will hopefully be able to make significant changes to the team and the squad.

‘Hopefully at the back end of January you will see a different, stronger and more competitive squad.

‘We have already had important meetings at Al Ettifaq in terms of mid-season updates and where every individual is, and where the group is at. The message, in summary, that we have sent is that we need to be aggressive, we need to be ruthless, and we need to make a lot of changes to make this team more competitive.’

Gerrard was speaking on the back of a 3-1 loss away to Al-Nassr, who can boast Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Aymeric Laporte Marcelo Brozovic, and Alex Telles in their ranks. 

He only has one match left in December before the mid-season break, which will last February 15. 

Al-Nassr beat…