Besiktas will be looking to climb into the top three in the Turkish Super Lig when they take on Antalyaspor at Antalya Stadium on Sunday evening.
Both teams claimed a win in the last Super Lig round - Antalyaspor narrowly won 1-0 at home against Istanbul Basaksehir, while the visitors scored twice in the second half to beat Gaziantep 2-0.
Match preview
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The hosts have spent most of the Super Lig season so far in mid-table and are currently in 12th place with 12 points, but without really competing for the European places or slipping into the relegation zone.
With their latest win against Basaksehir, the team ended their two-game losing streak, in which they were beaten 2-0 by Galatasaray and 1-0 by Gaziantep.
Nuri Sahin's men lacked consistency in the first three months of the season - two wins in a row against Samsunspor and Istanbulspor at the end of September were the best they could do to show any form of consistency.
Nonetheless, Antalyaspor made good progress overall from the end of September to the end of October; having failed to win any of their first five games, they have since bounced back with three wins from their last five.
Their home record has also improved in recent months, with three wins out of a possible four, including a 3-0 victory over Orduspor in the Turkish Cup in midweek, which could see them settle in the top half of the table if they become more consistent in the long term.
Besiktas, on the other hand, are aiming for a place in the top three of the Turkish Super Lig, currently sitting fourth in the table with 19 points from 10 games.
Burak Yilmaz's side have put in very inconsistent performances in recent months, with three wins and three defeats in all competitions.
The recent 2-0 win over Gaziantep was their first after two defeats to Bodo/Glimt and Galatasaray in the league, but the victory was hard-earned as it took them more than an hour to find a breakthrough through Salih Ucan and then Cenk Tosun, who scored the second goal of the game.
Their away record this season is relatively poor with three defeats in five games and only six points out of a possible 15, losing three of their last four away games and conceded two or more goals in two of them.
Although the 2023-24 season is still in its early stages, Besiktas are already 11 points behind league leaders Fenerbahce and nine points behind second-placed Galatasaray, making the dream of a possible Super Lig title win quite unrealistic unless the two Turkish giants experience a massive drop in form over the next few months.
Team News
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Antalyaspor will not go into this game injury-free, as three of their players will definitely be missing on Sunday.
Naldo, Ufuk Akyol and Gerrit Holtmann are all out with injuries, with Holtmann probably the biggest miss of the three absentees; he will be replaced by Sam Larsson on the left wing.
Antalyaspor will be led by Adam Buksa - the striker is the team's top scorer with four goals, but has yet to score since his return after the international break and will be eager to get back to scoring ways.
The visitors are in a far worse situation injury-wise, with six players from the first team missing through injury.
Omar Colley, Arthur Masuaku, Vincent Aboubakar, Valentin Rosier, Tayfur Bingol and Daniel Amartey are currently unavailable and it is not clear when they will be fit again.
Amir Hadziahmetovic will also not be available on Sunday after being sent off for two bookable offences in the last game against Gaziantep.
Besiktas's most successful player in the 2023-24 season has been Aboubakar, who has scored four times, but in the event of his absence, Tosun will be more than capable of replacing the Cameroon international.
Antalyaspor possible starting lineup:
Leite; Balci, San, Toprak, Vural; Rakip, Saric, Safuri, Bytyqi, Yehezkel; Buksa
Besiktas possible starting lineup:
Destanoglu; Bulut, Bailly, Uysal, Zaynutdinov; Ucan, Fernandes, Ghezzal, Rashica, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Tosun
We say: Antalyaspor 1-1 Besiktas
Besiktas have been pretty inconsistent in recent months, making it difficult to predict how things will pan out on matchday.
In view of the many injuries and the unconvincing away record, it would come as no great surprise if Antalyaspor were to take at least a point.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
