Through 25 rounds the top five look a lot like this ............

 

Trabzonspor 52 pts

Basaksehir 52

Galatasaray 49

Sivasspor 49

Besiktas 43

 

Title winner and the Champions League group stage place which comes with it seems sure to come from the top 4, second place gets a CL qualifying spot, 3rd and 4th go to the Europa League.

 

Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Head-to-head points; 3) Head-to-head goal difference; 4) Head-to-head goals scored; 5) Goal difference; 6) Goals scored; 7) Play-off.

 

Trabzonspor would keep their narrow lead at the top of the table with a point or better today (having drawn the reverse fixture 2-2), but obviously a draw is likely to let the 3rd and 4th placed teams into the equation.

 

Through the first 13 rounds of the season (roughly half of the games played so far) the table had a very different look, since when the current top three have played at a very different level to everyone else, with Trabzonspor picking up 29 points (9-2-1) , Galatasary having an identical record and Basaksehir collecting 27 (8-3-1), Besiktas went 6-1-5 and took just 19 points, taking just one point from three starts against top 5 teams in that sequence, despite playing three of those at home.

 

Last season, over the final 10 rounds, Basaksehir ran out of steam and blew an 8 point lead at the top of the table (they had 57 points through 25 rounds btw), picking up between 10-13 points less than the other three teams in action today, they have finished 2-3-2 the last three seasons and never won the domestic title and I just wonder if the pressure will get to them again. Trabzonspor won the last of their six titles in 1984 and have never finished higher than 4th over the last eight seasons.

 

Trabzonspor and Basaksehir have also played 5 games more than Galatasaray , 7 more than Besiktas this season.

 

Galatasaray are looking for a hat-trick of titles and have been champions in 5 of the last 8 seasons, they can close in on one or both of the top two with a win today and know how to get across the line, they have still to play the top two and with no other distractions, probably see themselves as title favourites, despite having ground to make up.

 

Basaksehir will doubtless travel in good heart and they have not lost to Trabzonspor since 2015, that's 9 h2h games unbeaten , including four on the road, with Trab failing to score in 5 and conceding 14 goals with just a single clean sheet.

 

Galatasaray have won six of the last ten derby meetings with Besiktas as host, including the last two (both 2-0) and also won 5 of 10 as visitor in the series.

 

 

 

Good Luck.