Fenerbahce beat Liverpool 3-2, inflicting defeat on Andoni Iraola‘s side for the first time in Europe this season.
After a fairly controlled start, it was the Reds who took the lead after 25 minutes, with Trey Nyoni becoming Liverpool’s second-youngest goalscorer in the Champions League, only behind Trent Alexander-Arnold.
But that goal seemed to wake Fenerbahce up, with the Turkish side equalising just four minutes later, as Greenwood scored from a free kick to make it 1-1 after 29 minutes.
The end to the first half was fairly chaotic, with both teams having chances to score a second and take a lead in at the break, but it ended 1-1 at half-time.
Iraola had seen enough after 66 minutes, with the score still level at 1-1, making a flurry of subs to bring Florian Wirtz, Cody Gakpo and Alexander Isak on.
Just three minutes later, it was Gakpo setting up Isak, who nodded it home with his first touch of the game, giving Liverpool the lead.
But once again, Fenerbahce responded, scoring not once, but twice in the following 10 minutes, with Archie Brown equalising in the 73rd minute, before Vedat Muriqi scored the winner in the 79th minute, having come from the bench.
Some day for Dirk Kuijt, not only winning his first game in charge of Fenerbahce, but doing so against his former club Liverpool!
In this article, we’ll cover
Nyoni controls
Iraola’s side began with good control in the match, managing settled possession phases nicely to establish early control in the game.
Nyoni was integral to this, constantly moving and repositioning himself as the “free” man against Fenerbahce’s defensive block, to keep things ticking and probe the Turkish side.
With Kostas Tsimikas pushing high on the left, dragging Greenwood deeper, and Irfan Can Kahveci looking to jump from a left midfield position out to Joe Gomez, the Fenerbahce midfield three were often trying to manage four Liverpool players.
Matteo Guendouzi was then looking to prevent easy access to the pivot, but still looking to jump out to Virgil Van Dijk when he received the ball, while Ismail Yuksek would shuffle across to pick up Alexis Mac Allister and N’golo Kante would then retreat to ensure there was coverage on Dominik Szoboszlai.
With Nyoni constantly looking to provide an option to receive, Kante could be caught in two minds on whether to jump out to apply pressure, with Yuksek then shuffling across to Szoboszlai and Guendouzi retreating to stay in touch with Mac Allister.
These constant 4v3 scenarios allowed Nyoni to get plenty of touches on the ball, having good pass selection and adding good rhythm to the game, controlling the tempo and allowing Liverpool to control the game initially.
Fenerbahce up the intensity
After Liverpool took the lead through Nyoni, Fenerbahce came to life, adding more intensity to their game, looking to stop Iraola’s side having such comfortable spells of possession and starting to force turnovers.
We saw this in the sequence leading to Fenerbahce’s equaliser, as Nyoni dropped to split the Liverpool centre-backs, Fenerbahce took the chance to jump and apply pressure, looking to force the turnover.
Guendouzi made his usual jump onto Van Dijk, Yuksek backed up the press by latching onto Mac Allister and Greenwood stayed with Tsimikas who dragged him deeper once again.
But this time, Romelu Lukaku stepped onto Nyoni, triggering Kahveci to step onto Jeremy Jacquet, leaving Gomez as the “free” player in a difficult area for Liverpool to access on the far side.
Kante’s positioning could be described as cheating, not being dragged away from the centre by Szoboszlai’s positioning between the lines, but staying in a half and half position instead.
This meant when the ball broke, Kante was ready to pounce, getting forward and winning the free kick, which Greenwood scored after a deflection off of Jacquet, making it 1-1.
The increased intensity was also seen when pressing man to man from Liverpool goal kicks, as Lukaku curved his run to block Jacquet and force the ball towards Van Dijk.
Guendouzi was then looking to stay close to the Dutch defender, with Yuksek stepping up aggressively with Mac Allister and Greenwood following Tsimikas.
Fenerbahce’s back four then matched up with the Liverpool front four, staying tight to their references, while both Kante and Kahveci took up half and half positions close to Nyoni, looking to deter Liverpool from playing out centrally.
The aim of their press was clear, force Liverpool to either go long, or to try and find their way down the flanks.
Super sub Muriqi
This game was clearly going down the route of being decided by the impact of each managers substitutions, with it initially looking like Iraola had won that battle with Gakpo linking up with Isak to make it 2-1 in the 69th minute.
But it turned out to be the 32-year-old centre-forward, Muriqi, who was the hero of the night.
For Fenerbahce’s second goal, without touching the ball, Muriqi was key, tussling with Jacquet in the box, stopping the Frenchman from clearing the ball and allowing it to drop through to Brown arriving at the back post.
Liverpool were clearly struggling to cope with Muriqi’s box presence, with another ball being looped into the box, again giving the Kosovan centre-forward a chance to tussle with Jacquet.
Despite having Jacquet, Mac Allister and Nyoni challenging him, Muriqi came out on top against all three, rising above and generating the power to guide his header past Alisson Becker into the bottom left corner.
In a game with three £100m footballer, two of which coming from the bench with a chance to be Liverpool’s hero, it was Muriqi that stole the headlines.