PSV may take a decisive lead in the Dutch title race as the league leaders meet number three ranked Ajax this weekend. Second ranked FC Twente face a tough job at AZ on Sunday.
The 25th match round in the Eredivisie may clear the path for PSV on their way to the Dutch title, but it may also open up the title race once more if Ajax manage to beat the league leaders on Sunday. Both Ajax and PSV advanced to the last 16 of the Europa League with convincing victories on Thursday. Ajax forward Miralem Sulejmani is on fire, scoring twice in the 2-0 win against Anderlecht.
FC Twente, who defeated Rubin Kazan 4-2 on aggregate in the Europa League on Thursday, will visit AZ on Sunday. A tough job for the title holders, who drew 1-1 at home against NEC last week.
If VVV-Venlo has any ambition to avoid the relegation play-offs at the end of the season, Friday’s home match against Excelsior is a must win. The gap between 17th ranked VVV and 16th ranked Excelsior is nine points. The 15th spot on the table means safety, for VVV that’s 12 points away.
Excelsior visited Venlo three times before in the Eredivisie and never managed to win. This season the Rotterdam outfit defeated VVV 1-0 at Woudestein, when Roland Bergkamp netted the rebound from Tim Vincken’s missed penalty.
VVV has lost its last two league matches without scoring a single goal, whilst Excelsior grabbed their biggest win of the season when they beat Willem II 4-0 last week.
Last week Willem II was torn apart by Excelsior (4-0), but the Tricolores have reason to believe in a good result on Saturday at home against sc Heerenveen. And a good result they need to close in on the five point gap that separates coach Gert Heerkes’ team from second from bottom ranked VVV-Venlo.
Willem II is undefeated in its last four home matches and last season Willem II defeated Heereveen 4-1 in Tilburg. However, the first encounter between Willem II and Heerenveen this season ended in a 5-0 victory for the home team in Friesland.
Heerenveen come from a 2-0 loss at home against AZ and if Ron Jans’ squad wants to stay in contention for a Europa League ticket, losing points against bottom ranked Willem II is no option.
Vitesse hope to see Wilfried Bony again on Saturday, when the Arnhem squad travels to Almelo for the match against Heracles. The Ivorian striker, who came from Sparta Prague for four million euro’s in the winter break, scored when he made his debut for Vitesse at home against De Graafschap (2-0) last week. This week he was treated for a muscle injury however.
Ismail Aissati and Nemanja Matic will certainly not play due to suspensions. Aissati was also suspended last week and Davy Pröpper took his place on the midfield. Pröpper scored when Vitesse defeated Heracles in Arnhem 2-0 earlier this season. With Matic suspended as well coach Albert Ferrer will have to fill a second gap on his midfield on Saturday.
Heracles did not manage to win in their last four home matches against Vitesse, but Peter Bosz’ squad are working on a good home streak at the moment. Keeping a clean sheet in their last two home matches, Heracles are on their way to equalizing their club record home streak without conceding a goal, which is three.
Roda JC is the only club in the Eredivisie with an undefeated home record this season and they hope to keep it that way when they lock horns with De Graafschap on Saturday. The last time De Graafschap won in Kerkrade was in 2001, when Rody Turpijn scored the only goal of the match for the Superboeren (1-0).
This season De Graafschap beated Roda 3-1 thanks to a Rydell Poepon hat-trick in Doetinchem and the last time that De Graafschap defeated the same opponent twice in one Eredivisie season was in 2001/2002, against Roda JC.
Last week Roda crushed FC Groningen 4-1 in Euroborg with Mads Junker scoring a hat-trick. The Danish striker is Eredivisie top scorer of the month with four goals in February. Junker scored only four of his thirteen Eredivisie goals this season at home.
NAC Breda will try to shrug off their financial troubles with a decent match against ADO Den Haag in front of their home crowd in Breda on Saturday. This week the club announced an investigation because of possibly illegal transactions in the past. This season NAC had already been stripped of a point in the competition because of financial troubles.
NAC are not only in trouble off the pitch, being the only club not to have won a league match in the Eredivisie in 2011. The eleventh ranked Breda squad grabbed one point from five matches this year.
ADO for their part have nothing to worry about. John van den Brom’s squad is aiming for a first European campaign since the 1987-1988 season. ADO come from a 2-2 home draw against Feyenoord, after they dropped 2-0 behind in the first half last week.
AZ and FC Twente are the two most recent Dutch champions. Title holders Twente hope to be able to grab the lead again this weekend, because top ranked PSV play host to number three ranked Ajax on Sunday.
Twente face a tough job at AZ however. The Tukkers have not been able to win in their last seven Eredivisie visits to Alkmaar, which makes AZ their toughest recent away opponent. The last Twente win in Alkmaar was in 2002, when the visitors won 2-1.
Last week Twente drew 1-1 at home against NEC. Bryan Ruiz was back in Michel Preud’homme’s squad, but the Costa Rican striker needs time to return at full strength after recovering from a knee injury.
AZ defeated Twente 2-1 in Enschede this season. The Alkmaar team managed to beat Twente twice in one season three times before, but the last time was in the 1982-1983 season.
Feyenoord face another tough job when they play host to FC Groningen on Sunday. The Rotterdam club are on course to deliver one of the worst Eredivisie seasons in club history. Mario Been’s team are ranked 15th, which is the lowest rank of Feyenoord after 24 matches.
Despite throwing away a 2-0 advantage against ADO Den Haag last week (2-2) Feyenoord seem to be recovering a little lately. If they win, the Rotterdam team will set their first four match undefeated streak of the season.
FC Groningen are doing very well this season. Only once before the Northerners were ranked higher (2nd) than their current 4th place after 24 matches. Last week Pieter Huistra’s team suffered a disappointing 4-1 home loss against Roda JC however.
Beating Ajax will mean only three points for PSV in the Eredivisie on Sunday, but it may be a giant leap towards the Dutch title eventually. If Ajax wants to stay in contention, they will have to beat the current league leaders.
Both Ajax and PSV advanced to the last 16 of the Europa League with convincing victories on Thursday. PSV defeated French Lille OSC 5-3 on aggregate and Ajax beat Anderlecht 5-0 on aggregate. Forward Miralem Sulejmani is on fire, scoring both goals for the Amsterdam team at home against Anderlecht on Thursday.
At PSV Balázs Dzsudzsák is the man to watch. The left footed Hungarian scored three times in the last two league matches. Against Ajax Dzsudzsák scored five times in six matches.
In Amsterdam the two clubs settled for a 0-0 draw this season. It was Luis Suarez' last match in the Dutch league and the Uruguayan striker said farewell to Ajax in a strange manner. He bit PSV forward Otman Bakkal, which led to a seven match ban in the Netherlands. In the winter break Suarez moved to Liverpool.
Last season PSV beat Ajax 4-3. The last away win in this match came in 2007, when Ajax beat PSV 5-1 in Eindhoven. Ajax and PSV never before played two goalless league matches against each other in one season.
NEC have the longest current unbeaten streak in the Eredivisie, not having lost their last eight matches. Last week the Red-Black-Green brigade drew 1-1 at title holders FC Twente. FC Utrecht also settled for a 1-1 draw. They were 1-0 up for 86 minutes, only to concede the 1-1 in the 89th minute at home against Heracles Almelo.
Utrecht not only lost two points against Heracles, but also Ghanaian midfielder Nana Asare, who was substituted because of a knee injury last week. He will be out for at least four weeks.
NEC do not have many worries. Eredivisie top scorer Björn Vleminckx did not score in the last three league matches, but Niki Zimling took care of the scoring duties and netted three times in the last two matches.
FC Twente, who defeated Rubin Kazan 4-2 on aggregate in the Europa League on Thursday, will visit AZ on Sunday. A tough job for the title holders, who drew 1-1 at home against NEC last week.
If VVV-Venlo has any ambition to avoid the relegation play-offs at the end of the season, Friday’s home match against Excelsior is a must win. The gap between 17th ranked VVV and 16th ranked Excelsior is nine points. The 15th spot on the table means safety, for VVV that’s 12 points away.
Excelsior visited Venlo three times before in the Eredivisie and never managed to win. This season the Rotterdam outfit defeated VVV 1-0 at Woudestein, when Roland Bergkamp netted the rebound from Tim Vincken’s missed penalty.
VVV has lost its last two league matches without scoring a single goal, whilst Excelsior grabbed their biggest win of the season when they beat Willem II 4-0 last week.
Last week Willem II was torn apart by Excelsior (4-0), but the Tricolores have reason to believe in a good result on Saturday at home against sc Heerenveen. And a good result they need to close in on the five point gap that separates coach Gert Heerkes’ team from second from bottom ranked VVV-Venlo.
Willem II is undefeated in its last four home matches and last season Willem II defeated Heereveen 4-1 in Tilburg. However, the first encounter between Willem II and Heerenveen this season ended in a 5-0 victory for the home team in Friesland.
Heerenveen come from a 2-0 loss at home against AZ and if Ron Jans’ squad wants to stay in contention for a Europa League ticket, losing points against bottom ranked Willem II is no option.
Vitesse hope to see Wilfried Bony again on Saturday, when the Arnhem squad travels to Almelo for the match against Heracles. The Ivorian striker, who came from Sparta Prague for four million euro’s in the winter break, scored when he made his debut for Vitesse at home against De Graafschap (2-0) last week. This week he was treated for a muscle injury however.
Ismail Aissati and Nemanja Matic will certainly not play due to suspensions. Aissati was also suspended last week and Davy Pröpper took his place on the midfield. Pröpper scored when Vitesse defeated Heracles in Arnhem 2-0 earlier this season. With Matic suspended as well coach Albert Ferrer will have to fill a second gap on his midfield on Saturday.
Heracles did not manage to win in their last four home matches against Vitesse, but Peter Bosz’ squad are working on a good home streak at the moment. Keeping a clean sheet in their last two home matches, Heracles are on their way to equalizing their club record home streak without conceding a goal, which is three.
Roda JC is the only club in the Eredivisie with an undefeated home record this season and they hope to keep it that way when they lock horns with De Graafschap on Saturday. The last time De Graafschap won in Kerkrade was in 2001, when Rody Turpijn scored the only goal of the match for the Superboeren (1-0).
This season De Graafschap beated Roda 3-1 thanks to a Rydell Poepon hat-trick in Doetinchem and the last time that De Graafschap defeated the same opponent twice in one Eredivisie season was in 2001/2002, against Roda JC.
Last week Roda crushed FC Groningen 4-1 in Euroborg with Mads Junker scoring a hat-trick. The Danish striker is Eredivisie top scorer of the month with four goals in February. Junker scored only four of his thirteen Eredivisie goals this season at home.
NAC Breda will try to shrug off their financial troubles with a decent match against ADO Den Haag in front of their home crowd in Breda on Saturday. This week the club announced an investigation because of possibly illegal transactions in the past. This season NAC had already been stripped of a point in the competition because of financial troubles.
NAC are not only in trouble off the pitch, being the only club not to have won a league match in the Eredivisie in 2011. The eleventh ranked Breda squad grabbed one point from five matches this year.
ADO for their part have nothing to worry about. John van den Brom’s squad is aiming for a first European campaign since the 1987-1988 season. ADO come from a 2-2 home draw against Feyenoord, after they dropped 2-0 behind in the first half last week.
AZ and FC Twente are the two most recent Dutch champions. Title holders Twente hope to be able to grab the lead again this weekend, because top ranked PSV play host to number three ranked Ajax on Sunday.
Twente face a tough job at AZ however. The Tukkers have not been able to win in their last seven Eredivisie visits to Alkmaar, which makes AZ their toughest recent away opponent. The last Twente win in Alkmaar was in 2002, when the visitors won 2-1.
Last week Twente drew 1-1 at home against NEC. Bryan Ruiz was back in Michel Preud’homme’s squad, but the Costa Rican striker needs time to return at full strength after recovering from a knee injury.
AZ defeated Twente 2-1 in Enschede this season. The Alkmaar team managed to beat Twente twice in one season three times before, but the last time was in the 1982-1983 season.
Feyenoord face another tough job when they play host to FC Groningen on Sunday. The Rotterdam club are on course to deliver one of the worst Eredivisie seasons in club history. Mario Been’s team are ranked 15th, which is the lowest rank of Feyenoord after 24 matches.
Despite throwing away a 2-0 advantage against ADO Den Haag last week (2-2) Feyenoord seem to be recovering a little lately. If they win, the Rotterdam team will set their first four match undefeated streak of the season.
FC Groningen are doing very well this season. Only once before the Northerners were ranked higher (2nd) than their current 4th place after 24 matches. Last week Pieter Huistra’s team suffered a disappointing 4-1 home loss against Roda JC however.
Beating Ajax will mean only three points for PSV in the Eredivisie on Sunday, but it may be a giant leap towards the Dutch title eventually. If Ajax wants to stay in contention, they will have to beat the current league leaders.
Both Ajax and PSV advanced to the last 16 of the Europa League with convincing victories on Thursday. PSV defeated French Lille OSC 5-3 on aggregate and Ajax beat Anderlecht 5-0 on aggregate. Forward Miralem Sulejmani is on fire, scoring both goals for the Amsterdam team at home against Anderlecht on Thursday.
At PSV Balázs Dzsudzsák is the man to watch. The left footed Hungarian scored three times in the last two league matches. Against Ajax Dzsudzsák scored five times in six matches.
In Amsterdam the two clubs settled for a 0-0 draw this season. It was Luis Suarez' last match in the Dutch league and the Uruguayan striker said farewell to Ajax in a strange manner. He bit PSV forward Otman Bakkal, which led to a seven match ban in the Netherlands. In the winter break Suarez moved to Liverpool.
Last season PSV beat Ajax 4-3. The last away win in this match came in 2007, when Ajax beat PSV 5-1 in Eindhoven. Ajax and PSV never before played two goalless league matches against each other in one season.
NEC have the longest current unbeaten streak in the Eredivisie, not having lost their last eight matches. Last week the Red-Black-Green brigade drew 1-1 at title holders FC Twente. FC Utrecht also settled for a 1-1 draw. They were 1-0 up for 86 minutes, only to concede the 1-1 in the 89th minute at home against Heracles Almelo.
Utrecht not only lost two points against Heracles, but also Ghanaian midfielder Nana Asare, who was substituted because of a knee injury last week. He will be out for at least four weeks.
NEC do not have many worries. Eredivisie top scorer Björn Vleminckx did not score in the last three league matches, but Niki Zimling took care of the scoring duties and netted three times in the last two matches.
