Ange Postecoglou's champions have opened the season with a 3-0 win over Al Fateh and a 4-0 win over Al Riyadh, seven goals scored and none conceded, and the shape of those goals matters more than the count. Abdulelah Al-Amri headed in from an Angelo corner in the 18th minute, Angelo arrived at the far post to finish a worked move in first-half stoppage time, and Joao Felix cut onto his right foot and rolled the third into the corner on 58. Set piece, pattern, individual quality. Al Nassr are scoring like a structured team rather than waiting for their captain to arrive.

"He scores a goal, which just shows you the measure of the man," Postecoglou said afterwards, having earlier explained the thinking behind the delayed introduction: "Cristiano Ronaldo always wants to play, but it is important that he takes his time to return." A coach with a reputation for demanding his system be served has spent two matchweeks proving the system can serve itself. The record book follows anyway. Ronaldo's goal drew him level with Mohammed Al-Sahlawi on 103 professional-era league goals for Al Nassr, one short of holding the club record alone.

Al Hilal have matched the champions point for point and goal for goal. A 4-2 win over promoted Al Faisaly was followed by a 3-0 win at Al Fayha on Thursday, the side set up in a 4-1-4-1 with Ruben Neves alone at the base of midfield and Karim Benzema leading the line. Orlando Mosquera kept the score down for half an hour before Sergej Milinkovic-Savic converted a rebound in the 31st minute, pouncing after the goalkeeper pushed out Crysencio Summerville's shot.

The second half showed the depth beneath the shape. Kalidou Koulibaly's long pass released Sultan Mandash within a minute of the restart, and the young forward beat his marker and finished. Mandash struck the post on 76, Nasser Al-Dawsari added a third on 88, and Summerville's 81st-minute penalty came back off the crossbar, the lone blemish on a first clean sheet of the season. Seven goals in two rounds, shared among midfielders, a centre-back's assist and academy products, reads like a squad in working order rather than a collection of names.

Al Ahli's early form answers a different question. Marino Pusic inherited a side that lost Matthias Jaissle to Newcastle United and Riyad Mahrez at the end of his contract, and transition summers tend to cost points in August. Al Ahli have instead ground out a 1-0 win at promoted Diriyah and then beaten Abha 4-0 in Jeddah on Saturday behind an Ivan Toney hat-trick, his sixth in the league. Toney now has 58 goals in 64 appearances since leaving Brentford, and Francisco Trincao marked the evening with his first Saudi Pro League goal, a long-range strike, before assisting Toney's third. Continuity wears the number nine shirt in Jeddah while the new coach settles.

The weekend's most instructive match finished 1-0 in Dammam, where Al Ittihad beat Al Qadsiah while losing almost every statistical category on the sheet. George Ilenikhena swept Steven Bergwijn's pass from a corner routine into the low corner in first-half stoppage time, a chance Sofascore's model valued at 0.02 expected goals. Dion Lopy collected a second yellow card two minutes into the second half, Jens Wissing reshaped his ten men into a 4-4-1 with Mukhtar Ali replacing Bergwijn, and the block held for the remaining 45 minutes.

Al Qadsiah's numbers from that game deserve their own paragraph: 26 shots to five, nine on target to two, 2.47 expected goals to 0.25, 66 per cent of the ball and 15 corners. The hosts put the ball in the net four times without a goal to show for it, and Julian Quinones, last season's 33-goal Golden Boot winner, claimed three of those finishes, each one erased for offside or a foul in the build-up. Call it flag football in the least American sense (a pun that cleared VAR, unlike anything Quinones hit all night). The defeat ended a home unbeaten run of 587 days and soured the league debut of Tijjani Reijnders, who arrived from the bench in the 57th minute to find ten defenders camped across the passing lanes he was signed to exploit.

For Al Ittihad the win carried more information than beauty. Wissing's side had opened with a 1-1 home draw against Al Kholood, wasting a penalty and finishing with ten men, and a second stumble against a top-five rival would have set an unhelpful tone for his first season in Jeddah. Predrag Rajkovic turned away everything Al Qadsiah aimed at him, the back line blocked the rest, and Al Ittihad banked three points that looked out of reach for most of the evening. Teams that intend to stay in a title race need at least one win of this type per month. Wissing has his early.

The table after two rounds shows Al Nassr, Al Hilal and Al Ahli locked on six points, separated by goal difference, with Al Ittihad on four and Al Qadsiah stalled on three despite outplaying the champions of two seasons ago. Early points carry extra weight this year because the calendar pauses from 24 December to 7 February while the Kingdom hosts the AFC Asian Cup, compressing the title race on either side of the break. The first direct test between the unbeaten sides arrives on 1 September, when Al Hilal host Al Ahli in matchweek three.