Following last week's disappointing home defeat to Ittihad and the poor show in the Confederation Cup, Al-Ashri has decided to wield the axe as Abdul-Ghani was the first to get punished.

"Abdul-Ghani was dropped because he was repeatedly late for training," the Hodoud boss told FilGoal.com.

"Other players like Ahmed Salem and Mohamed Hamed were not included because of their poor form of late."

Al-Ashri hit every player in his squad with a EGP 10,000 after the derby defeat to Ittihad last week.

The Alexandrians are currently 11th of the league table, one point behind their next opponents Degla.