Fenerbahçe 3-0 Alanyaspor: Lukaku Opens, Kerem and Muriqi Close as Second-Half xG Falls Off a Cliff

Fenerbahçe beat Alanyaspor 3-0 at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium on Friday, and the scoreline undersells the first half by a distance. Romelu Lukaku's 40th-minute opener, Kerem Aktürkoğlu's fast-break finish on 71 minutes and Vedat Muriqi's late third settled a Super Lig match Fenerbahçe controlled from the opening whistle — then managed rather than dominated after the break.

The headline number is the chance creation: 3.77 expected goals to 0.99, 24 shots to 13, 45 touches in the Alanyaspor box to 10. Fenerbahçe did not need a late surge to make this look comfortable. They built the comfort in the first 45 minutes and spent the second protecting it.

Fenerbahçe lined up in a 4-2-3-1 against Alanyaspor's 3-4-3, and the shape mismatch told immediately. The back three had no natural answer to Lukaku as a central reference, and the two-man Fenerbahçe double pivot kept recycling possession into the half-spaces while Alanyaspor's wing-backs were pinned deep.

The first-half numbers are lopsided even by the standards of a 3-0: 66% possession, 15 shots to 2, 29 box touches to 3, 2.84 xG to 0.04. Alanyaspor did not register a single shot on target before the interval. Fenerbahçe's 2.05 open-play xG in that period alone was more than double what Alanyaspor produced across the entire match.

Lukaku's goal on 40 minutes came from a Levent Mercan assist and carried an xG value of 0.49 — the kind of chance a striker of his profile is expected to convert, and he did. It was the release valve after 39 minutes of pressure that had produced five big chances without a goal.

Mason Greenwood was central to that pressure without scoring. He finished the match with 1.28 xG and no goal, the largest single underperformance on the pitch. Oğuz Aydın added 0.82 xG without converting. Between them, Fenerbahçe carried two of their most dangerous attacking threats through 90 minutes without a return, and still won by three.

Fenerbahçe's second-half xG was 0.93. Their first-half xG was 2.84. That is a drop of 1.91 — the single most striking number in the match, and the reason this 3-0 reads differently from the scoreline alone.

Possession narrowed to 53-47 after the break. Alanyaspor out-shot Fenerbahçe 11-9 in the second half and put five shots on target to Fenerbahçe's three. Duels swung the visitors' way, 21-15. Fenerbahçe committed 11 fouls to Alanyaspor's one after the interval, a sign of a team managing a lead rather than chasing a fourth.

Kerem Aktürkoğlu's 71st-minute goal came against that run of play — a fast-break finish with an xG of just 0.08, unassisted, the kind of chance that arrives from transition rather than construction. It was the goal that removed any lingering doubt, and it came from exactly the phase of the match where Fenerbahçe were least dominant.

Alanyaspor's best spell produced 0.95 second-half xG and five shots on target, but no goal. Their 0.18 set-play xG was the only category where they outperformed Fenerbahçe's 0.08, a marginal edge on dead balls that never translated into a meaningful threat.

Vedat Muriqi's 87th-minute third, assisted by Kerem, was a left-footed finish worth 0.25 xG — a routine close-range conversion that put the result beyond any late drama. By then the match had already been decided for 16 minutes.

Fenerbahçe finished with 476 accurate passes at 89%, 242 of them in Alanyaspor's half. Alanyaspor managed 313 accurate passes at 86% and just 110 in Fenerbahçe's half. The territorial split — 242 to 110 — is the cleanest summary of how the match was played: Fenerbahçe lived in Alanyaspor's end, and Alanyaspor never established a sustained presence in Fenerbahçe's.

The 8-2 big-chance count is the other number that matters. Fenerbahçe created eight clear opportunities and converted three. Alanyaspor created two and converted none. The 3.77-0.99 xG gap sits alongside the score rather than rewriting it — Fenerbahçe were worth their three goals, and Alanyaspor were worth their zero.

What the second-half drop-off means depends on what comes next. Fenerbahçe won this match in 45 minutes and spent the other 45 in control without threat. Against better opposition, a 1.91 xG decline after the break is the kind of pattern that turns 3-0 into 2-1. On Friday, it turned nothing. The three points were already secured by the time Alanyaspor found their footing.