Ankaragücü vs Trabzonspor match preview!

Ankaragücü host Trabzonspor on Saturday night at Yenikent Stadium as they look to build on their fantastic 2-0 win at Alanyaspor on Sunday night. The Yenikent pitch is in awful condition which is unbelievable at this stage of the season. I watched highlights of the Osmanlispor match at the weekend and you could be forgiven for thinking it was December with the condition it was in.

With that in mind it could be difficult for both teams playing the style of attacking football they like to play. Ankaragücü have looked impressive going forward with the likes of Younes Mokhtar, El Kabir and Thievy Bifouma all playing their part. Their close control and technique will play a big part in this match against a decent Trabzonspor side.

Trabzonspor have underachiever in recent years and haven’t saw any rewards for the investment they have put into the first team. In fact their biggest success has been 2 youth products in Yusuf Yazici and Abdulkadir Omur. Both players are fantastic talents and have the potential of playing at the very top. Yusuf has everything in his games range of passing, skill, can create and score goals and can also handle the physical side of the game. Omur is a fast, skillfull winger who also has a final product which is very rare in young wide these days. New manager Ünal Karaman who also had a spell at Ankaragucu this week signed Nigerian striker Anthony Nwakaeme who will be a handful for defences in Turkey with his power and all round play. I watched him play for Hapoel Ber Sheva and was always impressed.

The last time the two sides met was back in 2012 when Trabzonspor won 4-0 in Ankara at a time where Ankaragücü were in a financial mess, couldn’t play players wages and were playing with the youth team. Things have changed since then and it should be a much closer game this time around.

Ankaragücü will be without Thievy Bifouma who will miss out due to suspension. It’s unclear at the moment if new signings Alessio Cerci or Thibault Moulin will be ready for this game. Alihan Kubalas and Anton Putsila are both back in training but unlikely to be ready for Saturday.

Yalcin Ayhan and Bakary Kone have already forged a good partnership and will have the be at their best on Saturday. Both players can be exposed at times due to the attacking style of play. Ankaragücü play with attacking wingers, and also attacking full backs in Erdem and Thiago, this can leave the team vulnerable to the counter attack and that’s where Ricardo Faty and Arif Morkaya need to be very disciplined. Faty has been excellent both games and I’ll be looking for Arif to do more against Trabzonspor if he starts.

As discussed above, Trabzonspor also have an array of attacking options including Burak Yilmaz and Hugo Rodallega, but they are like Ankaragücü vulnerable at the back. This should be a game in which both teams score and whoever comes out on top on the defensive end will have a great chance of taking all 3 points.