Istanbul Basaksehir play host to Hearts on Thursday evening knowing that victory will secure their place in the last 16 of the Europa Conference League.

While Hearts have already done enough to secure third place, the Scottish side travel to Turkey unable to qualify for the latter stages of this competition.

Match preview

Having qualified for the knockout stages with a match to spare, Istanbul head coach Emre Belozoglu will be satisfied with the performances of his side in recent months.

Nevertheless, after a long unbeaten run, Istanbul have since lost their way, suffering three defeats in six matches in all competitions.

One of those setbacks came at Fiorentina last week, the Italian giants overturning an early deficit to record a 2-1 victory which keeps them in the hunt for top spot.

On a more positive note, Istanbul got back to winning ways in the league on Monday, posting a 3-1 triumph over Giresunspor to return to second spot in the Super Lig standings.

The Grey Owls have also only lost one home fixture in all competitions this campaign, and they will have total confidence that they will ease past opponents who were no match for them during the reverse encounter.

Hearts went into that fixture with the excitement and optimism which comes with a rare appearance in the group stage of a European competition, but Istanbul brought the Scottish side back down to earth with a 4-0 victory at Tynecastle.

Since then, Robbie Neilson's side have been playing catch-up, and they deserve credit for collecting six points from their following four matches, both wins coming against RFS.

However,the gulf in class to Istanbul and Fiorentina was there for all to see when the latter recorded 3-0 and 5-1 successes during their double-header.

More importantly for Hearts, they find themselves down in sixth spot in the Scottish Premiership, three points adrift of third, and Neilson will be content with their European campaign coming to an end on Thursday so that full focus can be placed on domestic matters.

Team News

With Istanbul having only played on Monday, Belozoglu will consider the recent game time of his players before settling on a starting lineup.

Only two players - Junior Caicara and Leo Duarte - played the full 90 minutes in both fixtures, and the likes of Danijel Aleksic and Bertrand Traore will be pushing for a recall.

Stefano Okaka is also expected to start having already netted three times in five outings in the group stages of this competition.

Neilson may be prepared to rotate his Hearts XI with Lewis Neilson, Jorge Grant and Euan Henderson all in contention to start.

Stephen Humphreys may be considered for a start in attack if he recovers from an ankle knock, something which would allow Lawrence Shankland to be rested.

Istanbul Basaksehir possible starting lineup:
Sengezer; Caicara, Ndayishimiye, Duarte, Lima; Aleksic, Biglia, Tekdemir; Traore, Okaka, Chouiar

Hearts possible starting lineup:
Gordon; Neilson, Sibbick, Kingsley, Cochrane; Smith, Kiomourtzoglou, Grant; Ginnelly, Shankland, Henderson

We say: Istanbul Basaksehir 3-0 Hearts

Although Hearts have improved since being blown away on matchday one, few people will expect them to make a dent in Istanbul on Thursday night. We are not one of those people, leading us to predict a routine win for the home side.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

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