Eskisehirspor Outplayed Galatasaray in Turkish Cup

Galatasaray visited Eskisehirspor in Turkish Cup action and ended up on the wrong side of the 1-0 scoreline. Antac headed home in the first half while Goran Pandev saw his shot cleared of the line by the last man back.

Both sides were fielded in a 4-2-3-1 as they looked to build up through possession and counter attacking. However, the home side had more energy, urgency, patience and hunger striding forward. Eskisehirspor pegged Galatasaray back at times, which made it easy to force errors and create chances inside the final third.

Hamza Hamzaoglu should be partially blamed for this loss as he actually started Olcan Adin — who is a winger or wide midfielder — as the starting left-back. He was good at pushing up, but defensively he made one mistake after another. Alex Telles was on the bench for some rest, but he should have jumped in at the beginning of the second half opposed to later.

The absence of Burak Yilmaz (who is out injured for another two weeks) was felt yet again as Pandev does not have the same legs or ability to score at will any longer. He should have scored from inside the six by choosing either corner instead of slotting straight down at the defender. Umut Bulut would not have made much of a difference either as he pulls back way too much in games.

Galatasaray needs to experiment with the 4-3-3 or even the 4-1-2-1-2 to add a bit of spice to their game. The 4-2-3-1 is good against teams that sit back and let them play. The other two could tire teams that look to pressure them for the majority of the 90 minutes.

With this loss, Galatasaray sits in second with nine points, whereas Eskisehirspor tops everyone with 12. There is one more game left to be played as Galatasaray will host Balcova Yasamspor, the team they defeated 9-1 on the road, while Eskisehirspor will visit Diyarbakir. Both matches will be played next Wednesday.