Fenerbahce will look to extend their remarkable 10-game winning streak to 11 when they take on Trabzonspor at Sukru Saracoglu Stadium on Saturday night.
Last weekend, the hosts proved once again that their outstanding early form in the league is no fluke as they won 5-0 against Pendikspor, while the visitors had to settle for a goalless draw against Fatih Karagumruk.
Match preview
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Ismail Kartal's side have made a blistering start to the 2023-24 Super Lig campaign and can be considered one of the best teams in Europe up to this point in the season.
The Yellow Canaries have won their first 10 games and are currently top of the table with the maximum points of 30, albeit only two points ahead of bitter local rivals Galatasaray, who have also performed very well, winning nine out of a possible 10.
Although the team played excellent football in the early part of the season, it seems that Fenerbahce now have even more confidence and have picked up even more momentum in the last month.
Kartal's team have scored four or more goals in four of their last five league games, keeping a clean sheet on four occasions too; the only game in which fewer than four goals were scored was a 2-0 win over Kasimpasa.
With five wins from five home games and 18 goals scored, they are also unsurprisingly the highest-scoring team in the league in front of their own fans.
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Trabzonspor, on the other hand, do not have the luxury of boasting such records as Fenerbahce, but they have nevertheless been in good form so far this Super Lig season, sitting in sixth place with 16 points after 10 games.
They are unbeaten in their last two games – a narrow 1-0 win over Alanyaspor two weeks ago, followed by a goalless draw against Fatih Karagumruk last weekend.
Despite losing just once in their last three games and picking up four points out of a possible nine, they have struggled badly in the final third, scoring just one goal in those three outings.
The match against Fenerbahce is complicated by the fact that Trabzonspor's away record this season is less than stellar, with just a single win in five games and three losses to Galatasaray, Hatayspor and Adana Demirspor.
Team News
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The hosts go into this game with a handful of injured players, which makes their recent form even more impressive.
The league leaders are expected to be without Alexander Djiku, Joshua King, Serdar Aziz, Luan Peres and Lincoln, all of whom will be out until late November or early December.
Experienced centre-forward Edin Dzeko has shouldered the goalscoring burden in the absence of King in recent weeks, scoring a hat-trick in the 5-0 win over Pendikspor, making him the team's top-scorer with 10 goals in 10 matches.
Trabzonspor are not particularly lucky with injuries either, with four players currently on the sidelines and unavailable for the foreseeable future.
Greek striker Anastasios Bakasetas, who is the team's top scorer with three goals along with Paul Onuachu, is probably the biggest absentee for the visitors in this match.
Fenerbahce possible starting lineup:
Livakovic; Osayi-Samuel, Akaydin, Becao, Kadioglu; Fred, Yuksek, Tadic, Kahveci, Szymanski; Dzeko
Trabzonspor possible starting lineup:
Cakir; Aydin, Baniya, Denswil, Elmali; Mendy, Ozdemir, Visca, Omur, Fountas; Onuachu
We say: Fenerbahce 3-1 Trabzonspor
It does not look like Fenerbahce will stop anytime soon, even though the injury list on their side is quite daunting.
With all due respect to Trabzonspor, they do not look like a team that could stop the league leaders at this stage of the season.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
