Preview: Konyaspor vs. Besiktas - prediction, team news, lineups

Konyaspor and Besiktas will both be looking to return to winning ways when they face off at Konya Metropolitan Municipality Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

There is little separating the teams in the Turkish Super Lig table heading into this weekend's encounter, which should be a keenly-contested affair.

Match preview

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Besiktas were on the receiving end of a 4-2 defeat against Adana Demirspor in Wednesday's meeting between the teams at Yeni Adana Stadyumu.

Goals from Younes Belhanda, M'Baye Niang, Emre Akbaba and Yusuf Erdogan left Senol Gunes's men with a mountain to climb, after which Vincent Aboubakar and Milot Rashica halved the deficit with late strikes.

As a result, the Black Eagles have dropped down to sixth place in the standings, a whopping eight points adrift of city rivals Fenerbahce at the summit.

Lying in store next is the challenge of an opposing outfit who have managed only one win from the last six editions of this fixture across all competitions.

Having let in eight goals across their last three away matches, Sunday's visitors will need to be solid at the back to get a positive outcome here.

Konyaspor had to settle for a point in their clash against Ankaragucu which ended in a 1-1 stalemate at Eryaman Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Aleksandar Stanojevic's men trailed to Riad Bajic's early opener but managed to level matters just shy of the half-hour mark through Ahmet Oguz.

With nine points from their six league outings this term, the Anatolian Eagles currently sit three places and one point behind their next opponents.

Off the back of a first defeat on home turf in their most recent home involvement, Sunday's hosts set out to avoid back to back losses in front of their fans for the first time since February.

Team News

Besiktas duo Gedson Fernandes and Ante Rebic are both sidelined with muscle injuries and will not play any part in this weekend's contest.

Talha Sanuc is also ruled out of contention for the away side with a knee problem, while Emrecan Uzunhan remains unavailable due to personal reasons.

Twenty-seven-year-old Milot Rashica will be pushing for a place in the starting lineup having come off the bench to good effect last time out.

Muhammet Demir remains without an appearance for Konyaspor this term due to a knee injury and the forward is still a considerable way off making a comeback.

Bruno Paz is set to sit out a fourth consecutive game with a torn which he sustained on international duty with Angola back in September.

Konyaspor possible starting lineup:

Bernardoni; Guilherme, Calvo, Demirbag, Yazgili; Dikmen, Moreno, N'Zonzi, Oguz; Ulgun, Oliveira

Besiktas possible starting lineup:

Gunok; Masuaku, Colley, Uysal, Rosier; Hadziahmetovic, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ucan; Tosun, Ghezzal, Aboubakar

We say: Konyaspor 1-2 Besiktas

Besiktas have been defensively suspect of late, and we cannot see them coming away from this weekend's encounter with a clean sheet. However, we are tipping the visitors to secure maximum points by a narrow margin in the end.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.