Beitar Jerusalem heads down south to face Hapoel Beer Sheva on Monday night (20:30) in a top of the table Israeli league football battle that many fans have been waiting for with bated breath. The yellow-and-black will enter the clash without two main players; Omer Atzily is still out of action and will not be a part of Head Coach Barak Itzhaki’s squad while the 12th man, the Beitar supporters will not be able to attend the match due to a penalty levied by the Israel Football Association court.

Beer Sheva sits in first place with 48 points and Beitar is a hair behind with 47 points as the two clubs traded places over the past few weeks of play. The capital city side are on an incredible 12 game league streak where they have not lost a match with the last defeat coming back in early November when the southern reds clipped Beitar 1-0 at Teddy Stadium.

However, Itzhaki’s crew is entering the game on a 3 game winless run after drawing their last two league contests while coming up short against Bnei Yehuda 2-1 just last week after Beitar was unceremoniously bounced from the State Cup competition. The game was held in front of close to 30K fans at Teddy Stadium which no doubt shook the foundations of what the bench boss and sports director Almog Cohen are building as the fans walked out shaking their heads and in shock having fallen to the a second division team.

But one of the issues in that game was that Itzhaki played a number of players from his squad that had not gotten regular rotation minutes in the first half. That set the tone for the ultimate result which also included a disturbing red card picked up by keeper Miguel Silva that will now keep him out of Monday’s clash, one that he would have wanted to be a part of.

The players who started, some of whom may find their way out of the club before the winter transfer window comes to a close had no sense of urgency to win a game that was do or die. That’s something Itzhaki’s got to fix ahead of the Beer Sheva match or else Beitar may find themselves 4 points off the top of the table with the Tel Aviv teams gaining ground behind them.

Itzhaki said prior to the final training session that there will still be two more games against Beer Sheva and plenty more league matches to go before the season comes to an end, but Beitar certainly don’t want to be four points behind with another huge clash coming up at home against Maccabi Tel Aviv. At that point, if the heat hasn’t been on pretty high just yet, it will be going full blast and there will truly be a crisis, something that Itzhaki brushed off a week ago.

That’s the last thing he wants to see happen.

In order for Itzhaki’s team not to reach that point, he laid out a number of things that need to be changed and changed quickly.

Beitar has to put the Bnei Yehuda loss behind them and set up a mental barrier between that game and the one that is coming up against Hapoel Beer Sheva. If the squad is unable to do that, it may be a very long evening at Turner Stadium. Beitar must make a clear separation and disconnect to what went on last week at Teddy and most importantly play their football, the football that put them in the position they are in now and one that saw them in first place just a couple of weeks ago.

To do that, Itzhaki’s squad needs to make sure that the players don’t lower their intensity, with the ball and as he described, especially without the ball which was the case last week. He feels and rightfully so that if Beitar is to succeed and stay at the top has to keep pushing and running which he said was done with an eye test but that the data backs that up.

Pressing and pressuring is what got them to the point they are at now and if they don’t keep that up then there will be a problem and the opposition will take advantage of what would be described as lazy play.

One of the beauties of football is that more often than not, there is another game right around the corner in order to make the necessary corrections and to get back to playing the football that got to them a point where they have experienced success. One of the ways to do that is by coming out on top in a big game and the one coming up on Monday is without question a pretty big for both teams. It’s a chance to show that Beitar deserves to belong in the championship conversation as well as showing how much character they have as well to those watching the game unfold.

Itzhaki knows that he has a solid squad which is extremely talented and one that can strive to reach some great places but in order to do that they have to work even harder as nothing is going to be handed to them on a silver platter.

In goal, Yehonatan Ozer who featured in a few matches this season when Silva was out injured performed admirably in his stead and his presence in goal shouldn’t be a major cause for worry. What Itzhaki needs to make certain is that everyone trusts the keeper just as he does, which going back to the eye test shouldn’t be an issue whatsoever.

The bottom line for Beitar is that they are in a fine spot right now and if anyone would have said prior to the season that they would be where they are right now heading to Turner, Itzhaki as he said would have grabbed in with two hands.

But ultimately, if Beitar wants to really be a contender and not fall away as a pretender they have to work hard and work even harder because they aren’t the deepest squad in the league and while they are talented, there are also other teams that are as talented as they are and even more so in some cases.

That would be the case with Hapoel Beer Sheva.

If Beitar wants to come out on top on Monday night, they will need to put their best foot forward and play with everything they’ve got. They are in the mix now for the title and if they want to remain there, they have to go back to the basics to what helped them get to the position that they are in today.