Konyaspor head into Monday's fixture with Yeni Malatyaspor knowing that they will likely require victory to retain hold of second position in the Super Lig standings.
Meanwhile, the visitors have recently dropped into the relegation zone, a consequence of failing to win any of their last four matches.
Match preview
With Trabzonspor seemingly in unstoppable mood at the top of the table, Konyaspor cannot really consider themselves to be involved in a race for the title.
That said, they will be desperate to remain as the best of the rest, a cause not helped by losing 3-2 at Gaziantep in their last top-flight fixture.
In a back-and-forth game, their opponents netted a winner four minutes from time, and it leaves the teams between second and eighth position separated by just four points.
Sokol Cikalleshi has moved clear at the top of the goalscoring charts, three of the Albania international's five strikes coming since the start of November.
Konyaspor got back to winning ways on Wednesday evening, posting a 3-1 victory over Vanspor VK in the cup.
Yeni Malatyaspor also made progress in that competition, requiring extra time to emerge victorious by the same scoreline against Akhisarspor.
However, YMS have been desperately poor since the start of September, losing eight of their 11 Super Lig fixtures to drop into the relegation zone.
On a positive note, they earned an extremely respectable goalless draw versus Galatasaray last weekend, but Marius Sumudica needs more performances like that from his players.
Although they are the clear underdogs to collect anything from Monday's match, Sumudica will take confidence from six points coming from as many games on the road this season.
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Team News
Konyaspor are able to call upon Abdulkerim Bardakci and Ahmet Yilmaz Calik, who have both served one-match bans in the league.
Adil Demirbag and Marin Anicic will both drop out of the middle of the backline, while Endri Cekici is also pushing for a recall in midfield.
Having held Galatasaray to a goalless draw, Sumudica will not feel obliged to make any unenforced alterations to this Yeni Malatyaspor team.
A 5-4-1 formation proved effective in that contest, and Sumudica will likely adopt the exact same strategy against another high-performing side.
Despite scoring just once since the start of September, Adem Buyuk will keep his place in attack.
Konyaspor possible starting lineup:
Sehic; Skubic, Bardakci, Calik, Guilherme; Cekici, Hadziahmetovic; Gurler, M'Poku, Bytyqi; Cikalleshi
Yeni Malatyaspor possible starting lineup:
Ozbir; Hafez, Ciftpinar, Wallace, Kaya, Haddadi; Mallan, Nshimirmana, Ndong, Chouiar; Buyuk
We say: Konyaspor 2-1 Yeni Malatyaspor
After their surprise defeat last time out, Konyaspor are under pressure to deliver an immediate response. While they may not have it all their own way on Monday evening, we still expect the home side to have enough about them to edge this contest by the odd goal in three.
Top tip
Darren Plant
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Konyaspor win with a probability of 60.61%. A draw had a probability of 23.1% and a win for Yeni Malatyaspor had a probability of 16.24%.
The most likely scoreline for a Konyaspor win was 1-0 with a probability of 13.98%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (12.24%) and 2-1 (9.51%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.85%), while for a Yeni Malatyaspor win it was 0-1 (6.2%). The actual scoreline of 0-0 was predicted with a 8% likelihood.
