Fortuna Sittard will be gunning for three wins on the trot when they make the journey to the AFAS Stadion on Saturday to face off against AZ Alkmaar.
For AZ Alkmaar, this is an opportunity to temporarily move into second place ahead of PSV's trip to Willem II on Sunday.
Match preview
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AZ Alkmaar bounced back from a defeat to newly-crowned champions Ajax by claiming a 3-1 win against RKC Waalwijk on Saturday.
Albert Gudmundsson, Myron Boadu and Calvin Stengs were all on target as Pascal Jansen's men fought back from a goal down to secure a fifth consecutive home win.
The Cheeseheads are still in the hunt for second place and are now just a point behind following PSV's dropped points versus Heerenveen.
AZ are unbeaten in each of their last six meetings with this weekend's visitors, winning on five occasions and drawing once.
However, that solitary draw came back in September's reverse fixture where Zian Flemming scored a last-gasp leveller to ensure a share of the spoils.
Fortuna Sittard have now picked up consecutive 3-0 victories following a convincing triumph over FC Twente on Saturday.
Lisandro Semedo scored either side of Mats Seuntjens's penalty just after the hour mark to send Sjors Ultee's men level on points with Sparta Rotterdam in the race for a top-half finish.
The Fortunezen also just six points behind Groningen, but with only three games remaining, a European finish is perhaps a tad unrealistic.
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Team News
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AZ's Pantelis Chatzidiakos is expected to sit the game out as the Greek defender is yet to feature since suffering a knee injury one month ago.
Rens van der Wacht still awaits his first outing of the season, and the 21-year-old is still a considerable way off making his return from a muscle injury.
The home side will be without the services of Richard Sedlacek who has missed the last two matches with a broken ankle.
Mickael Tirpan was subbed off in the closing stages of Fortuna's loss to Feyenoord five weeks ago, but he could make his comeback this weekend.
Yanick van Osch kept what was only his second clean sheet of the season on his return to the starting XI last time out.
AZ Alkmaar possible starting lineup:
Bizot; Wijndal, Martins Indi, Letschert, Svensson; Stengs, Reijnders, Midtsjo; Karlsson, Boadu, Gudmundsson
Fortuna Sittard possible starting lineup:
Velthuizen; Cox, Amiot, Angha, Rota; Hansson, Rienstra, Tekie, Semedo; Seuntjens, Flemming
We say: AZ Alkmaar 4-1 Fortuna Sittard
AZ Alkmaar are still in with a shout with respect to finishing as runners-up, but they know that anything less than three points this weekend would hamper their chances. We are backing them to secure a convincing win, scoring plenty of goals en route.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a AZ Alkmaar win with a probability of 65.53%. A draw had a probability of 19% and a win for Fortuna Sittard had a probability of 15.5%.
The most likely scoreline for an AZ Alkmaar win was 2-0 with a probability of 9.85%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.82%) and 1-0 (8.78%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.76%), while for a Fortuna Sittard win it was 1-2 (4.36%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with an 8.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that AZ Alkmaar would win this match.
