THE ORACLE'S PREDICTION IS SPOT-ON !

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

Our Oracle in Glasgow (Bellshill Kanka Nadeem) did warn us in his pre-match assessment not to build our hopes up, so we listened to his words of wisdom and met at the Chopin last night expecting the worst. We were not disappointed !

Besiktas 3 Ankaragucu 1

When I saw the team news go up on the TV screen I have to say that I shook my head in disbelief. How many times have I said on the Blog that the only way to play the Istanbul Three is to ATTACK them from the kick-off ?!

Team -

Ozden
Guven, Rajnoch, Aydin and Ugur
Weeks, Hurriyet, Kagan, Bilal and Ozgur
Turgut

Ankaragucu don't have a recognised striker since the loss of Sestak, Vittek and Fatih and Besiktas must have been rubbinhg their hands with glee when they saw in the Ankaragucu line-up that Turgut was the 'Lone Ranger' up front. He is NOT a striker !!

However, that doesn't excuse Ziya Bey for flooding the midfield when there was Tonia and Serdar warming the bench. Admittedly, they both came on the 2nd half (Tonia just after the break, and Serdar with 20 minutes to go). Too little attacking options too late !

Anyway, we all met up in The Chopin (Battle Damaged Kanka Damon, Maniac Kanka Harun, John, Fetish Kanka Huseyin and I), and like I said, we were not holding our breath for Ankaragucu to do an Istanbul BBS or Ess-Ess and take the game to Besiktas.

Besiktas was soon into their stride and it took a great save from my Man of the Match (Ozden) to tip the ball over the bar to prevent a certain goal. It was very much a 'backs against the wall' for Ankaragucu with Ugur in particular making some excellent tackles to break-up the frequent Besiktas attacks which came pouring forward.

Half an hour gone and Ozden again made two great saves one after the other to keep Ankaragucu in the match. Ankaragucu did have a chance to score against the run of play when a long shot came in from the left and hit the bar with Cenk helpless. Weeksie was following up but he didn't react quick enough when a header might have been the wise choice, and ballooned the ball over the bar.

With half time approaching the inevitable happened. Another Besiktas corner and there was the unmarked Sidnei at the near post to bullet a header in with Ozden well beaten.

Besiktas resumed where they had left off in the 1st half, ie, in full attacking mode, and once again Ankaragucu was on the back foot. Off went Guven and Bilal and on came Umut and Tonia to applause from the kankas and the response was almost immediate.

The Ankaragucu equaliser arrived and it was really down to the 2 goalkeepers. An astute throw-out by Ozden which found Tonia unmarked, and as he was racing to pick the ball up, out came Cenk , but a fraction of a second too late. Tonia nicked the ball past him and angled his shot into the net with the Besiktas defenders unable to intercept.

This sparked some life into Ankaragucu and for a while we were dreaming of taking all 3 points. Well for about 25 minutes anyway as Ankaragucu tried to make the break through.

However, another dead-ball goal from a corner and again Sidnei was given a free header which beat Ozden all the way with Ugur static on the goal line unable to make the headed clearance.

That took the steam out of Ankaragucu and Besiktas wrapped it up when the unmarked Quaresma received a pass on the left in acres of space and he fired in an inch perfect cross with the ouside of his foot for Mustafa to head in with Ozden helpless.

Ziya Bey has some work to do in the next few days with his limited resources. He has to find an answer to the striker situation, and he has to practice defending corners and dead ball free kicks into the box. If the January transfer window doesn't open for Ankaragucu then I don't envy his task for the reamainder of the season !

In the meantime, Ankaragucu play fellow strugglers Sivas at home on Thursday night. Meeting in the Chopin at 6pm and going to the Stadium at 7pm

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim