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Crocs aim for win over Roosters to cement league lead
Young and soft-spoken Bursaspor coach Ertuğrul Sağlam prefers to do his talking on the pitch and so refrained from making any statements to the media. But others did the talking for him.
“We will be playing Denizlispor on Monday [today] and we are treating every match like a final,” Bursaspor Chairman İbrahim Yazıcı said on Saturday. “It’s going to be a tough encounter, no doubt about it. And our aim, with the support of our faithful fans, is to get through this match unscathed,” he further noted.
“I said it before and I am saying again that this success is belated. Bursaspor ought to have achieved this before now. Nevertheless we are still happy. The entire city, the players, the technical staff, the administration are united and are speaking with one voice. We want success and will eventually succeed,” Yazıcı added.
Defender İbrahim Öztürk concurred with his chairman. Speaking during a training session at the Özlüce facilities, he said: “This match is of utmost importance for us. Our opponent is well down the league table and is also desperate to avoid the drop. But we will be playing on our home turf and I am confident we shall prevail.”
Rock solid Crocs
Sağlam has no major injury or suspension problems. Injury-prone teenage Turkey striker Sercan Yıldırım is fit and will be orchestrating Bursaspor’s attacking force today.
Goal-scoring Bulgaria goalkeeper Dimitar Ivankov, who traveled to his home country, has returned and trained with the rest of the Crocs on Saturday. Serbia central defender Ivan Ergic and Romania midfielder Giani Stelian Kirita also took part.
Bursaspor beat the Manisaspor Tarzans, who are a better team than the relegation-bound Denizlispor Roosters, at home in week 25, the weekend before last, and so there is hardly any reason why the hungry Crocs cannot munch the hapless Roosters this evening.
Roosters the underdogs
Denizlispor coach Hakan Kutlu should not be a very happy man because his team will be on the receiving end this evening. In other words, the Roosters, judging from recent performance, are no match for the Crocs and may just have to be on the pitch as pawns of fate.
Soccer is a game of upsets, but the Roosters upsetting the Crocs in Bursa today is unthinkable. Their best bet would be a draw and even that is a tall order indeed.
Kickoff is at 8 p.m. and the referee will be Serkan Çınar.
On Saturday, troubled Diyarbakırspor, ordered to play three matches on neutral ground and three behind closed doors, put all its troubles behind it and beat visiting Antalyaspor 1-0 in its “home” match that was played at the İsmetpaşa Stadium in İzmit. Antalyaspor completed the match with 10 men after midfielder Sedat Ağçay was red-carded by no-nonsense referee Halis Özkahya in the 69th minute.
Manisaspor also won by the same score at home over İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor. Manisa’s goal and the only goal of the match was scored by midfielder Mehmet Güven -- a Galatasaray reject -- three minutes before fulltime.
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