Mohammed Al Anbar opened the scoring for the Saudi side with a 37th minute header and second half substitute Ahmed Al Suwailh sealed victory with his team’s second two minutes after the hour mark.

Al Hilal’s reward is a home match in the last 16 against Umm Salal of Qatar while the Uzbek club will have to travel to Damman to face another Saudi outfit, Ettifaq.

“We went into the game with only one target which is to win the group and we eventually achieved that with a good win,” said Al Hussaini.

“The result doesn’t mean that Pakhtakor are a weak team because they gave a battling performance.

“The key factor in our win tonight is that we made Pakhtakor exhausted in the first half and that helped us to control the game in the second period. The Uzbek players were also tired because of the hot weather.

“We had a lot of scoring chances throughout the game and we should have sealed the win early in the first half. But our players lacked concentration while some of them were affected by serious injuries like Mirel Radio and Majed Al Marshadi.

“I told the players to play an easy game in the second period and not to get involved in serious clashes with the Pakhtakor players.

“We also had a lot of chances to score in the second period which could have given us a bigger win.”

Pakhtakor coach Victor Djalilov admitted that Al Hilal were the better side in the match.

“Obviously we didn’t come here to lose as we wanted to win the game in order to win the group,” he said. “However, we had a lot of problems against a strong team like Al Hilal.

“They played a better game than us. In such games it is important to score first and whoever scores first will eventually win the game and that’s what happened tonight.

“Our players showed a lot of fighting spirit and they played with a strong attitude and that probably in a few injuries for the Al Hilal players.

“However, we didn’t play our usual game and Al Hilal deserved to win.”