Turkish giants Fenerbahce hold a 2-0 advantage as they prepare to host Austria Wien in the second leg of their UEFA Europa League play-off on Thursday.
Joshua King and Serdar Dursun grabbed the goals in the first leg, while Austria Wien’s Lucas Galvao was shown a red card on 83 minutes.
𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡 🚀 𝘌𝘻𝘨𝘫𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘬𝘪 pic.twitter.com/nY3JxDAUWd— Fenerbahçe SK (@Fenerbahce) August 24, 2022
𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡 🚀 𝘌𝘻𝘨𝘫𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘬𝘪 pic.twitter.com/nY3JxDAUWd
Fenerbahce enjoyed 63% possession and registered ten shots in Austria. Naturally, the Turkish side will be confident of extending their lead on home soil.
Fenerbahce head into Thursday’s clash on the back of a thumping 4-2 victory over Adana Demirspor in the Turkish Super Lig. It is worth noting that Enner Valencia bagged a brace in the rout.
Last year’s runners-up have made a flying start to the new campaign, taking seven points from a possible nine while scoring 13 goals in the process (4.33 goals per game).
Earlier this month, Fenerbahce hammered Kasimpasa 6-0 – with Enner Valencia and Arda Guler both scoring twice.
Given that Fenerbahce have only suffered one defeat in their previous seven Europa League encounters, they will fancy their chances of progressing on Thursday.
As for Austria Wien, they picked up a 2-1 victory over Wolfsberger last weekend – courtesy of goals from Andreas Gruber and Marco Djuricin.
Still, they find themselves fourth from bottom in the Austrian Bundesliga table after winning just two of their opening five matches.
Although Austria Wien have won two of their last three games across all competitions, they have also lost three of their previous six.
Having failed to compete with Fenerbahce throughout the first leg, the Austrians are on course to suffer another defeat in the reverse fixture.
Head-to-head: Austria Wien and Fenerbahce played their first competitive game last week, meaning the Turkish side have the upper hand when it comes to the H2H record.
Team news: Fenerbahce look set to be without injured trio Nazim Sanagre, Serdar Aziz and Joshua King on Thursday.
Ziad El Sheiwi, Armand Smrcka, Florian Wustinger, Marko Raguz and Matan Baltaxa are all injured for Austria Wien. Lucas Galvao will miss the second leg through suspension.
When you couple Austria Wien’s lengthy list of absentees with last week’s performance, all the signs point towards another easy win for Fenerbahce.
With that in mind, Forebet predicts that Fenerbahce will score over 2.5 goals on their way to victory.