Beşiktaş beat Gençlerbirliği 3-0 to reach fourth place
Türkiye’s Beşiktaş entered the international break after round 11 with a 3-0 home victory over Gençlerbirliği. Dusan Vlahovic scored twice before Ernest Poku completed the result, taking the Istanbul club to 22 points and fourth place. Gençlerbirliği played most of the match with ten men, while Beşiktaş maintained a perfect home league record for the season.
Sports··Evening
Vlahovic’s double opens the way
Türkiye’s Beşiktaş beat Gençlerbirliği 3-0 at Tüpraş Stadium in Istanbul in round eleven of the Süper Lig.[1], [2]
Dusan Vlahovic put the home side ahead in the twentieth minute and scored again in the forty-fifth, with Leandro Trossard providing the final pass for both goals. Gençlerbirliği lost Metehan Baltacı to a red card in the twenty-second minute and played the rest of the match with ten men. Ernest Poku completed the scoring in the eighty-fifth minute. The victory lifted Beşiktaş to 22 points and fourth place as the league entered its international break.[1]
A home win follows two lost leads
Poku’s goal followed Trossard’s chipped effort over the goalkeeper, with Poku sending the ball into the net near the goal line. Beşiktaş came into the fixture after surrendering leads in its previous two matches. In the league it drew 2-2 with Kasımpaşa after going two goals ahead; in European competition it lost 3-2 to Celtic after also leading. Against Gençlerbirliği, goalkeeper Alexander Nübel kept a clean sheet after conceding in both of those games. Vlahovic reached nine goals in nine league appearances, while his five European outings, including qualifiers, contained no goals.[1]
Six home matches bring six victories
Beşiktaş have now won all six home league fixtures this season, scoring sixteen goals and conceding three. Before Gençlerbirliği, they beat Eyüpspor 1-0, Çorum 6-2, Erzurum 3-0, Kocaeli 2-1 and Başakşehir 2-0. The new result continued that sequence and added another clean sheet to their home campaign. The match also brought a suspension: Orkun Kökçü received a yellow card in the fifty-fifth minute, taking his league total to four. He is suspended for the Konyaspor fixture, the next league match identified in the account of Beşiktaş’s international-break victory. Kökçü had returned to the starting side after completing treatment. His earlier bookings came against Çorum, Erzurum and Amed.[1]
