Al Khaleej's King, settled instantly in RSL, vying for Cristiano's crown

In pre-season predictions for the 2025-26 Roshn League golden boot, Al Khaleej’s Joshua King might not have been the first name of the lips of the majority.

The 33-year-old attacker had floated around Europe since his last 10-plus goals season, which came for Bournemouth in the English Premier League during the 2018-19 campaign.

Since then, the Norwegian international has played for both Everton and Watford, and more recently in continental Europe for Fenerbahce in Turkiye and Toulouse in France. In his past 60 league matches across those two spells, King netted 12 times in total.

Therefore, his summer signing for Al Khaleej made it five clubs in six seasons, which hints at a player that’s been unsettled and unable to really grasp the opportunity despite his abundant talent.

But whether it’s the sunshine or the lifestyle in Dammam, King has taken to the RSL like a duck to water; after only five rounds, he has seven goals on the board already. It represents his best return for any club since that 2018-19 season.

A hat-trick on Sunday against Al Riyadh - he became only the second Al Khaleej player to hit a treble in the RSL, and first since Brazil’s Jandson in 2017 - puts King one behind rampant Al Nassr superstar Joao Felix in the top-scorer standings.

To his immense credit, King's impact for Al Khaleej has been immediate, him finding the net in all but one of their RSL matches as they’ve surged to sixth in the table. Indeed, nine points from five matches constitutes Al Khaleej's best start in the RSL.

Subsequently, they are above the likes of Asian champions Al Ahli and hugely ambitious NEOM Sports Club on goal difference, thanks largely to King’s class in front of goal.

The in-form frontman has looked right at home in the 4-4-2 system deployed by Georgios Donis, playing up top just ahead his coach's Greek counterpart Konstantinos Fortounis, who has a goal and five assists thus far. As a pairing, they are dynamic. Together, they’re giving life to the unheralded Al Khaleej.

While King is being deployed as a striker by Donis, for much of his career the debate around him has been where he is best utilised: up front or on the left wing.

Perhaps that somewhat explains his itinerant career during the past half decade; he could be a player caught between positions and thus never really getting the best out of himself.

As far as his own opinion on that, King has previously admitted he prefers playing up front - but also that he’s happy to do whatever the manager requires.

“Obviously, I’m a centre-forward but I’m a team player,” the then-Bournemouth forward told Sky Sports back in 2019. “When the manager asks me to play out wide, I’ll do a job, anything for the team. But it is harder.”

His managers, however, haven’t always been so sure.

“When I first watched him play, when he really, really hit me in an impressive way, was for Blackburn [in 2013],” Eddie Howe, who signed King at Bournemouth, told The Athletic in 2020. “He played left wing, and he gave us a really tough afternoon.

“For the majority of his career, he had been a left winger. He’s obviously played up front as well; I saw him play for Norway as a No.9 and he did really well. This was before we signed him, so we knew we were signing a player of versatility.

“I’m not sure he’s a wide player in a four in midfield but, in a five in midfield, I definitely think it suits him.”

With Donis preferring 4-4-2, it helps explain why the veteran RSL manager has looked to use King at the tip of the attack rather than out wide. And, when he’s having the season that he is, that decision is more than justified.

Al Khaleej’s success, running parallel to King’s, demonstrates where he is perhaps best positioned. Yet he is more than simply a striker. While King is yet to record an assist this term, it’s not through lack of effort: he has conjured six chances for his new colleagues.

“I started the season well, [and] as a team we’ve started well,” King said after his Man of the Match performance against Al Riyadh. "The last game [the1-0 home defeat to Al Taawoun] wasn’t to our level and today we wanted to get back to our best.”

Even though it’s so early into his Al Khaleej career, King is suggesting his best might be yet to come. However, ahead of this weekend's trip to Tabuk to face NEOM SC, his superb start has ensured he's no longer flying under anyone’s radar.