Four wins in a row for high flying Ankaragucu!

Ankaragucu made it 4 wins in a row with a comfortable 2-0 win over Eyupspor in what was the last of the 5 match stadium ban at the 19 Mayis stadium in Ankara. In truth it should have been 4 or 5 nil but for some dubious refereeing and poor finishing.

Team - Emrah Tuncel, Serkan Balci, Sezgin Coskun, Alihan Kubalas, Onur Atasayer, Ferhat Culcuoglu, Harun Aydin, Orhan Gulle, Omer Bozan, Erhan Senturk, Muharrem Cengiz Ozan

Subs - Emre Koyuncu, Cenk Kaplan, Mustafa Ozturk, Onur Bayramoglu, Orhan Evci, Ahmet Yavzar, Murat Yilmaz

So Ismet Tasdemir decided to go with the same team who won 3-2 at Sariyer last week with Muharrem continuing up front in the absence of injured Enes Kubat. And like last week the former Bandirmaspor impressed adding another goal to his account and impressing with his all round play.

The first 20 minutes of the game was pretty boring with only 1 chance falling to Ankaragucu but Mahmut in the Eyupspor made a good save. After that Ankaragucu started to dominate the match and were rewarded with the opening goal.

Excellent play down the left hand side from Onur Atasayer who put in an excellent low cross into the box and there was Muharrem Cengiz from 5 yards out to put the ball into the back of the net. 1-0 Ankaragucu.

Harun Aydin has been arguably the best player in the Ankaragucu team this season. He is enjoying his new position further forward and almost made it 2-0. His shot from the edge of the box was brilliantly saved from Mahmut who turned it round the post for a corner.

Just before half time Ankaragucu should have doubled their lead, a good cross into the box found its way to Muharrem at the back post but he somehow headed the ball over the bar when it looked easier to score.

Half Time 1-0 and Ankaragucu were good for their lead but as we know in football a 1 goal lead is never enough.

Into the second half and Ankaragucu had an early chance, Mahmut saved the first effort but then almost gifted Ankaragucu a goal as he slipped but the ball was cleared to safety by his team mate who saved his blushes.

Five minutes later Ankaragucu had the ball in the back of the net but it was ruled out for offside. The initial effor on goal hit the crossbar and Orhan Gulle put the ball into the back of the net from the rebound. The linesman gave offside though but replays show that he got it wrong.

Eyupspor first chance of the game came after 54 minutes. Former Ankaragucu midfielder Ufuk Bayraktar had a go from distance but Emrah Tuncel made a good save to keep it 1-0.

Ankaragucu had two chances within 30 seconds. Erhan Senturk saw his free kick saved, then Onur Atasayer had a great chance inside the box but he dragged his shot wide with just the keeper to beat.

Another goal was then chopped off for Ankaragucu. Mahmut kicked the ball against Muharrem and the ball went into the back of the net. The referee gave a foul against Muharrem saying he held the keeper back as he tried to stop the ball crossing the line. Again it looked like the wrong decision.

Onur Atasayer and Harun both had efforts from distance go wide of the post, Harun continuing to impress with his skill and flair. Ankaragucu will do well to hold onto their young player.

Eyupspor pushed for the equaliser late on and went close with a minute remaining. Ankaragucu went up the other end and won a free kick on the edge of the area. Naci Bayraktaroglu was sent off for his rash last man challenge.

Up stepped Erhan Senturk who again showed his quality from set pieces as he Curled the ball into the top corner giving Mahmut no chance. It was a wonderful goal to cap off another good performance from Ankaragucu who remain joint top with Gumushanespor.

Gumush won 1-0 at Kirklarelispor while Karsiyaka lost 3-1 at home against Inegolspor. So considering the 5 match stadium ban, Ankaragucu find themselves in a strong position and now go into every other game with the 12th man behind them.

Next up is an away match at Etimesgut next Saturday followed by the home match with 1461 Trabzon at home on the Tuesday night.

Gencler lose points in the capital

Well that was a fun match. One which we probably should have lost.

Genclerbirligi 1 - 1 Besiktas

It was about time that one of our new friends James came along to a match (confusingly we have two new James' Kankas joining us in the last few months). A few beers at The Alerta and then met up with Dan the Man, young Efe, and not so young Kevin. A good crowd with the Besiktas fans filling their away sections and a few thousand of us Gencler fans. Lots of pro-Republic chanting before the match started and then...

Kick-off and bam... a very different Genclerbirligi from last week's rubbish. Stancu was out with a virus of some kind. Muriqi started up front and had a good game in my opinion (except for one chance he had but failed to get a shot off). No Rantie for this one, although he came on very late). Everything else was as expected.

Anyway, Gencler had a wonderful first half and could have scored a few. Just one scored though and it was a beauty. Irfan half hoofed it, half passed it high into the air and the ball was set to bounce about five metres outside the box. A defender was on Serdar but for some very strange reason the Besiktas keeper came out to get it. He hesitated and Serdar chested it down, ran around and had a shot with his left foot. It was difficult but the keeper of course was no where near the goal. The ball bounced and went in. hahahahahaha.

"Points lost in the capital": Interpretation:
"No one exists except for the Istanbul clubs.

A few more chances in the first half, Landel had one brilliantly saved, and the first half ended with Gencler clearly the superior team.

Second half though and things were very different. It wasn't that we started playing badly, it was that Besiktas stepped up and their quality players started showing why they are worth so much. Their goal came from a short cross by Quaresma, man what a player he is, that was then headed in. Lots of time on the clock and it was only thanks to some heroic keeping by Hopf, the odd brain explosion from Besiktas attackers and some great saves by our defenders Mr. Post and Mr. Bar that kept us in the match.

We had a few chances, Irfan was denied by a brilliant save after a free kick, and in the end we held on for the draw. Phew.

Happy with a point

Genclerbirligi managed to get a draw against Besiktas tonight and they should be happy. There are still a million things wrong with the team but almost any team would be pleased with a draw against last season's champions. I'll post a longer report in the not too distant future.

Ankaragucu vs Eyupspor match preview!

Ankaragucu serve their final game of the 5 match stadium ban on Sunday as they take on Eyupspor. It was also announced today that the match with 1461 Trabzon on Tuesday 8th November will kick off at 7pm Turkish time. That match will be the first home match that the fans can attend this season and we will be hoping for a big turnout from the Ankaragucu fans.

Team news and Hursit Tasci remains out injured while Enes Kubat started back training this week but  is rated doubtful for the match. It looks like the impressive Muharrem Ozan will start again in attack after this excellent performance last week at Sariyer.

Eyupspor have failed to win their last 3 games and currently sit 13th in the league table. Their will be a couple of familiar faces in their squad for the match as both Ufuk Bayraktar and Bilal Gulden ply their trade with the Istanbul side.

Ankaragucu know they must win tomorrow and keep pressure on Gumushanespor who are away to Kirklarelispor. As discussed last week we must defend better if we want to be serious title contenders,  let's hope we can take the 3 points and set things up nicely for the fans return to the stadium.

Gencler scrape through

The view from one of the Gencler fans to make the trip.

Just a short post on today's victory.

Pendikspor 0 - 1 Genclerbirligi

It was Turkish Cup time today with a mid-week midday match against Pendikspor, which I think is in Istanbul.

A one-nil was good enough with Kahlili scoring from the penalty spot in the 19th minute.

Not much to say except at least a few of our fringe players got some time on the pitch.

@kirmizikara neyse resmî hesapta da yerimizi aldık Hakan Karakoca sağolsun pic.twitter.com/2iotndftGJ

— Meriç Ayberk Özkaya (@M_A_Ozkaya) October 25, 2016

It was fun for three minutes

"You're not alone," the banner displayed by the two
Gencler fans who made it to Rize.

"Besides Ahmet Calik it seems like we have put out our development team," a text message on the Alkaralar WhatsAp group.

"WTF: Former Bournemouth striker Tokelo Rantie has been removed from the South African squad for farting on the manager," a million tweets that came out after the match.




Rizespor 2 - 1 Genclerbirligi

Hopes were high after last week's good performance against Galatasaray but...

Bugger all Kankas at the Alerta on Friday night, just Jimmy and his good lady Rose, and me and Little Oz. Not a completely full pub but plenty of atmosphere anyway. Then Gencler managed to kill any enthusiasm by playing rubbish.

Everything seemed wrong, especially the attitude. There was way too much arguing with the referee and the anger seemed to translate into rash decisions all over the place. In the end we were given about seven yellow cards, most of them deserved.

The first goal was the fault of one of the arguers. Rize had a good attack and sent a pass into the box which went straight to our defender Ahmet Ugur who had a go at it, missed, and the ball hit his non-kicking leg and bouncing straight to the Rize attacker bang in front.

Once again we were down 1-0 after just 10 minutes or so...

Then it was all rubbish for the rest of the first half.

We strangely started with Rantie up front. The South African who we bought from Bournemouth a few months ago has yet to impress... and was rightly taken off at half time. Serdar was also taken off for Aydin Karabulut. A good decision that gave a bit of spark on the right.

It was a much better half and we finally got an equaliser in the 76th. It was a bit of a scramble but it counted. Good to see Muriqi get on the scoreboard, something that should boost his confidence.

Our joy lasted about three minutes when an unfortunate handball happened in the box. Penalty... and converted.

Disappointing.

Ankaragucu return to the Capital with 3 points!

Ankaragucu fans were banned from traveling to Istanbul earlier this week for today's match at Sariyer. The reason given was due to security reasons and previous issues with Gecekondu. So instead Ankaragucu fans who wanted to travel to the game had to sit in amongst the home fans. Ridiculous decision as usual, putting fans safety at risk. For such a wonderful country, Turkey sure has some lazy ways of dealing with fan behaviour.

Team - Emrah Tuncel, Serkan Balci, Sezgin Coskun, Alihan Kubalas, Onur Atasayer, Harun Aydin, Ferhat Culcuoglu, Orhan Gulle, Omer Bozan, Erhan Senturk, Muharrem Ozan

Subs - Emre Koyuncu, Adem Saglam, Onur Bayramoglu, Murat Yilmaz, Mustafa Ozturk, Muhammed Gonulacar, Emre Sahin

So a couple of forced changes for Ankaragucu with Sezgin and Muharrem replacing the injured Cenk and Enes. A couple of other notable changes with Orhan replacing Muhammed and Onur Atasayer replacing Mehmet Tasci who didn't even make the squad. Ismet Tasdemir was clearly upset at the way the team played last weekend and he freshened things up today.

Enes was always going to be a big loss for the team as he has been our key player, but today was all about his replacement Muharrem Ozan who scored two stunning goals and led the line well working his socks off.

The first chance of the game came for Ankaragucu after 11 minutes. Harun played a nice ball through for Muharrem, the ball deflected back into path of Harun who blasted the ball inches wide from just outside the box.

Serkan Balci was again having a great game and his quality was really shining through. Ten minutes later he played a nice quick free kick with Harun before breaking free into the box, his cross then took a deflection and went into the back of the net to make it 1-0 Ankaragucu.

Sariyer went close a few minutes later from a free kick but the shot went just past the post much to the relief of the Ankaragucu fans mingled inside the home section.

Just when it looked like Ankaragucu would go in at half time 1 goal up they doubled their lead. The ball found its way to Muharrem Ozan just inside the box and he finished clinically past Gokhan for his first Ankaragucu goal and made it 2-0.

A good first half performance from Ankaragucu who looked solid at the back and were working hard in midfield.

The second half was nail biting stuff and the game changed when Serkan Balci went off injured to be replaced with Adem Saglam.

Sariyer got themselves back into the game after 58 minutes. Ankaragucu nearly scored from a corner but Adem couldn't put the ball into the back of the net. Sariyer then went up the other end of the park and scored to make it 1-2.

Ankaragucu had two excellent chances after 66 minutes. The first one was an excellent through ball from Muharrem into the path of Harun, but his shot was brilliantly saved by Gokhan in the Sariyer goal. Thirty seconds later and almost carbon copy where Mustafa Ozturk found Erhan Senturk but Gokhan again made an excellent save. In all honesty both chances should have been converted.

Then came the last five minutes of the game, firstly Erhan missed a great chance to finish the game off. Then Sariyer were awarded a penalty. Up stepped Hasan Soylu but his effort was weak and Emrah made a good save.

A minute later the best moment of the game. Onur Atasayer put in a corner to the edge of the box and a Muharrem volleyed the ball into the top corner. It was a stunning goal to round off an excellent performance from the striker.

Their was enough time for Sariyer to score a consolation goal through Ensar Baykan to make it Sariyer 2-3 Ankaragucu.

Three points and Ankaragucu keep their place joint top with Gumushanespor who also won today. Well done AG!