Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 9:27 PM• Dominic Mostert • Last update: 21:31

Fenerbahçe spilled expensive points on Thursday in the battle for the national title in Turkey. The number two of the Süper Lig remade with 0-0 on a visit to Alanyaspor. Fenerbahçe played the entire second half with one man less, after a rash tackle from Gökhan Gönül. The match marked the return of Mesut Özil to Fenerbahçe: the attacker was taken away by stretcher on March 4 in the duel with Antalyaspor (1-1) and has since been sidelined with an ankle injury. Fenerbahçe takes over second place from Galatasaray, but is five points behind Besiktas.

Salih Uçan, active at Fenerbahçe between 2012 and 2019, almost hurt his old club early in the game. The midfielder received the ball on the right side of the playing field, on the edge of the penalty area, and extended the leather in one go with a lot of feeling. His diagonal bet landed on the roof of the goal. Fenerbahçe, with Ferdi Kadioglu on the bench for the entire match, seemed to receive a penalty from referee Yasar Kemal Ugurlu not much later. After a sharp pass from Ozil, Enner Valencia was knocked down in front of goal by Steven Caulker. However, the VAR noticed that Valencia was offside, which resulted in the penalty being canceled.

Two minutes before the break, Fenerbahçe was again disappointed by an arbitral decision: Gönül was sent away with a direct red card. The captain brought down a broken Davidson just outside the penalty area from behind and had to leave the field. In the second half, Alanyaspor was unable to exploit the numerical predominance. As a result, Fenerbahçe expanded its own unbeaten series to seven games, but the loss of points is particularly costly in the battle for the national title. With four games to go, leader Besiktas has a five-point lead. The leader is still playing against Hatayspor (home), Galatasaray (away), Fatih Karagümrük (home) and Göztepe (away).