Fenerbahce 3-2 Liverpool: two leads lost in Istanbul
Fenerbahce beat Liverpool 3-2 in Istanbul on Wednesday and ended the visitors' perfect start in the Champions League league phase. Liverpool led twice, through Trey Nyoni after 25 minutes and Alexander Isak after 69, and lost to a Vedat Muriqi header eleven minutes from the end.
Andoni Iraola's side had 67.6 percent of the ball and 22 shots. They scored twice. Fenerbahce had 32.4 percent of the ball and 17 shots, and scored three times. The difference was not control but what each team did with the few moments when the game opened up.
Two leads, two quick answers
Nyoni put Liverpool ahead in the 25th minute with a right-footed shot from the centre of the box. The lead lasted four minutes. Mason Greenwood equalised from a free kick, right footed into the bottom left corner, and the teams went in level at half-time.
Isak restored the lead in the 69th minute, heading in a cross from Cody Gakpo. The answer took four minutes again. Archie Brown scored from the left side of the six-yard box after a corner, and in the 79th minute Brown crossed for Muriqi to head into the bottom left corner.
Both Liverpool goals came from moves that had time to develop. Two of Fenerbahce's three came from a set piece or the second ball that followed it, which is how a side with a third of the possession stays in a game and then wins it.
The numbers behind the score
| Stat | Fenerbahce | Liverpool |
|---|---|---|
| Possession | 32.4% | 67.6% |
| Shots | 17 | 22 |
| Shots on target | 6 | 6 |
| Corners | 4 | 12 |
| Accurate passes | 186 | 475 |
| Saves | 4 | 3 |
| Fouls | 13 | 12 |
Liverpool made 529 passes and completed 475. Fenerbahce made 260 and completed 186. Liverpool had 12 corners to four, 42 crosses to ten, and 22 shots to 17. None of that separated the teams on the scoreboard because both had six attempts on target, and Fenerbahce turned half of theirs into goals.
Control without the kill
Liverpool's crossing was volume without precision: 42 attempts, 11 accurate. Twelve corners produced no goal. The visitors kept pushing numbers into the box and Fenerbahce kept clearing, with 31 clearances to Liverpool's 13, then breaking into the space that was left.
The pattern repeated itself after Isak's header. Liverpool had the ball, Fenerbahce had the next clear chance, and Brown's equaliser came from a corner that Liverpool did not deal with. Five minutes later Brown was the supplier for Muriqi, and the game had turned for the last time.
Fenerbahce blocked three shots and Liverpool blocked five, which tells you where the attempts were coming from. Liverpool's best work was in possession between the boxes. The decisive work was inside the 18-yard area, and the home side were sharper there.
Fenerbahce's passing was direct: 260 passes, 186 accurate, 49 long balls and only 18 completed. Liverpool played 529 passes and completed 475, with 25 of 44 long balls finding a teammate. The home side did not try to match Liverpool's rhythm. They tried to shorten the game, and the numbers show a team content to defend deep and wait.
Kuyt against his old club
Dirk Kuyt, the former Liverpool forward, is Fenerbahce's coach. The Times described the night as one for "Kuyt's Premier League cast-offs", a line that captures the shape of the result better than the possession stats.
It was Fenerbahce's first win of the league phase. They had drawn two and lost one of their first three games, and the three points lift them to 19th in the 36-team table. Liverpool stay eighth on nine points, level with a group of clubs separated only by goal difference.
That group runs from fourth to twelfth, and every club in it has nine points. Arsenal have 10, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid have 12, and the top eight is separated by three points. A win in the next matchday would put Liverpool back among the direct qualifiers; a second defeat would turn the last two games into a calculation.
What it means for Liverpool
Liverpool had won their first three European games and conceded seven goals in the process. The fourth game added three more and took the clean shape off the start. With four matchdays gone, they are eighth, which is the last direct place in the round of 16, and the margin is goal difference rather than points.
In the Premier League they are fifth on 15 points from nine games, with 11 goals scored and nine conceded, after Sunday's 1-0 defeat by Arsenal at Anfield. The European night repeated a domestic pattern: plenty of the ball, not enough of it turned into goals.
Liverpool have scored 11 goals in nine league games and 14 in four European games. The difference is that the European games have opened up more, and against Fenerbahce the openness worked against them.
- Two leads lost, in the 29th and 73rd minutes.
- 22 shots and six on target, two goals.
- 12 corners and 42 crosses, no goal from a corner.
The next test
Liverpool do not play again in the competition until the next matchday, and the league phase gives them room to recover: nine points from four games is usually enough to stay in the top eight conversation. Fenerbahce have less room, but they now have a win against the strongest opponent in their run.
The table is tight enough that one result moves a club several places. Liverpool's task is to make sure the next one does not move them out of the top eight, while Fenerbahce need to show that a night built on six shots on target can be repeated. The full picture is on our tables page, where every club's points and goal difference are updated after each matchday, with the rest of the European results in the Champions League section and the domestic reaction in our Premier League coverage.