Sunday, February 13, 2022

ANKARAGUCU POSTED ABSENT !!



 

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

 

Ankaragucu’s recent impressive winning run came to a shuddering halt yesterday in Ankara against a determined and hard working Istanbulspor team who fully deserved to take all 3 points.

 

Istanbulspor had obviously done their homework on the Ankaragucu danger-men who were well marked throughout the match, especially at set-pieces.    However, Ankaragucu players were also to blame for failing to capitalise on playing against 10 men for most of  the  2nd half.    Also, Ankaragucu was generally out fought in 50-50 ball situations, passes going astray and crosses into the box from free kicks and corners going directly to Istanbulspor defenders for the most part.

 

A poor performance by Ankaragucu’s standards and there must be a significant improvement for the midweek visit to Menemen and net weekend’s match at home to Bursa.

 

ANKARAGUCU              0                           Istanbulspor            1

 

Team – Akin, Yasin, Yusuf, Sinan, Erdem, Ali Kaan, Abdullah, Zahid, Owusu, Murat and Eren

 

Substitutes – Ishak, Pinto, Geraldo, Hasan and Cem

 

Ankaragucu only had 2 serious chances in the entire match which is a sad reflection for the team top of the league and playing at home   !!

 

The first one occurred in the 5th minute when the Istanbulspor goalkeeper mis-kicked a clearance which fell conveniently for Eren.    However, Eren was too slow to take advantage of the mistake  !       If he had taken the ball first time with his left foot it might have been a goal, instead of transferring the ball to his right foot and allowing a defender time to tackle and dispossess him.

 

The second attempt arrived just before the half time whistle and it was Eren who was involved again.    A cross came in from the right wing to the centre where Eren was unmarked inside the 6 yard box.    He made a perfect diving header which was destined for the top right, but the attempt was acrobatically saved by the goalkeeper.

 

In between those two attempts, Istanbulspor went ahead in the 22nd  minute when they carved open the Ankaragucu defence in a swift break down the right.      The Ankaragucu defence went to sleep and were well and truly caught out when 4 attackers raced towards the Ankaragucu goal with 3 defenders scurrying back to defend the break.    The ball was played to the unmarked Valon on the left and he shot inside the right post for a well constructed and executed goal.

 

There were only 3 more incidents of note in a frustrating  2nd half.       The first occurred 10 minutes in when Ologo tripped Eren just outside the box as he was about to shoot and the referee produced the RED card.

 

There was a 2nd RED card for the Istanbulspor goalkeeper near the end when he was shown a yellow card for time wasting and a 2nd yellow for something he said to the referee  !!

 

Also, near the end, Eren went down clutching his chest, and after treatment, was able to walk off for further treatment.       Mustafa Bey made a statement this morning that Eren had a spasm in his chest and he is now fine.      Good news  !!

 

As I said, this was a poor performance by Ankaragucu and we hope it was a one-off !!!       

 

They have a chance to put the show back on the road on Wednesday night when they travel to play Menemen who are 5th bottom in the league.

 

However, in the meantime, the focus is on today’s match between 2nd top Umraniye and 3rd top Erzurum.       A draw will be considered a good result by Ankaragucu   !!!

 

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim

No comments:

Post a Comment