Fenerbahce vs Arsenal preview

Posted on | October 20, 2008 | No Comments

Arsene Wenger’s young Arsenal side travel to intimidating Istanbul to face Luis Aragones’ Fenerbahce in a Group G Champions League fixture on Tuesday night, knowing fully well that a win will put them in pole position to win the group.

Arsenal lead Group G with four points, and put on an impressive display to rout Porto 4-0 a fortnight ago with Adebayor and Van Persie grabbing two each. On Saturday, they came back from a goal down to beat Everton 3-1, with Van Persie, Nasri and Walcott on the scoresheet. However Wenger does have some problems in defence. Alexandre Song looked extremely uncomfortable occupying the right back position against the Toffees. Stand in skipper Kolo Toure’s injury means that Wenger will be without his first choice central defensive pairing- Gallas and Toure. Manuel Almunia will captain the side in the absence of Toure and Gallas. Bacary Sagna is out too, but young Swiss centreback Johan Djorou returns, and is likely to partner Mikael Silvestre. Wenger can once again call upon the services of Danish striker Niclas Bendtner, who missed the Everton game with an ankle strain. Eduardo, Amaury Bischoff and Tomas Rosicky remain on the absentees list.

Fenerbahce, who hired Euro 2008 winning coach Luis Aragones, have not had the greatest of starts to both domestic and European campaigns. They lost to Porto 1-3 away, and then had a goalless stalemate against Dinamo Kiev at home. Fenerbahce reached the last eight of the Champions League last year before falling to Chelsea. A late goal from Semih Senturk saw them edge Kocelispor 3-2 in the Turkish Super Lig on Saturday. Fenerbahce possess some excellent players- Senturk, Dani Guiza, Ugur Boral, Alex, Diego Lugano, Roberto Carlos and Colin Kazim Richards to name a few. Fenerbahce will be relying on the home crowd to unsettle Arsenal’s youngsters, many of whom are making the trip to Turkey for the first time in their careers.

In 1979, this fixture ended 0-0. How could it end in 2008 ? It probably all comes down to how Arsenal cope with the Istanbul crowd. Arsenal might just nick this 2-1, with goals from Nasri and Van Persie. Guiza to score for Fenerbahce.

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