Fenerbahce lose with van Persie benched

Fenerbahce travel to face Celtic on Thursday on the back of a 3-2 defeat at Besiktas.

Vitor Pereira’s side found themselves two goals down after 25 minutes but despite bringing Robin van Persie on from the bench they were unable to rescue a point from the match.

The Dutch striker levelled the scoring in the 65^th minute, after four minutes on the park, but Mario Gomez struck the winner nine minutes later.

Van Persie has started just four matches since his expensive summer move from Manchester United with his relationship with Pereira the subject of speculation in the Turkish media.

Last night’s result allowed Besiktas to join Fenerbahce at the top of the table with 13 points from 6 matches.

Looking towards Thursday’s match Ronny Deila said: “I think we’ll meet a team hungry for revenge after their last result in Europe and they are a team with a lot of quality. It’s going to be a very interesting game, a very exciting game, something to look forward to.

“At Fenerbahce they have pressure all the time, like we have here. That’s something they have to deal with. They have started well in the league, they are up at the top, but everybody can lose a game – it’s how they react to it. We just have to make ourselves prepared and play at our best, then we’ll have a good chance to beat them.”

After losing their opening Europa League tie at home to Molde another reverse would put the pressure on Pereira’s side ahead of a double header with Ajax.

While Celtic host Fenerbahce, Ajax travel to Norway to face a Molde side still revelling in their surprise win in Turkey on matchday one.

Molde host the Dutch side on the back of two successive defeats in the Norwegian league that leaves them 19 points behind leaders Rosenburg and sitting in place.

Since their draw with Celtic Ajax have reeled off three successive wins to progress in the KNVB Cup and go three points clear of Feyenoord at the top of the table.