Hilal was unfortunately the better team and deserved to win this game, they were first to all balls, MUCH more organized than EsEs and they were extremely fast on counters and passing.
I'm a little confused why GN subbed Borhani out - he was clearly putting pressure on their defence and Mousavi (his replacement) was called offside how many times in the 2nd half? Also, the insistence to keep the ball up in the air rather than playing it on the ground was a little strange. I think Samuel was out of the game again and overall, the gap between our forwards and defence was always really BIG in this game, so something has to be done about the midfield for the next game or our defence has to move up more.
All that said, EsEs is still in 1st place and only a win against Al-Rayyan at home will guarantee that we go through, regardless of any of the other results. GN clearly has some more work to do before that game.