Newcomers Go Ahead Eagles make the journey to De Kuip on Sunday to tackle Feyenoord in matchday two of the 2021-22 Eredivisie campaign.
The sides head into the clash in Rotterdam in contrasting moods with the hosts having picked up an opening-day win, while the visitors were left empty-handed.
Match preview
© Reuters
Feyenoord made a perfect start to the new league season as they claimed an emphatic 4-0 victory over Willem II in Tilburg on Sunday.
Arne Slot's men went into the break with a two-goal advantage courtesy of strikes from Bryan Linssen and Luis Sinisterra, before second-half goals from Guus Til and Naoufal Bannis put the result beyond doubt.
De Stadionclub saw off the threat of Sweden outfit IF Elfsborg on Thursday, picking up a 5-0 first-leg triumph to all but secure a place in the Conference League.
Sunday's hosts have now won each of their last six competitive outings this term and have not conceded a goal in any of the last three.
With next week's second-leg clash looking like a mere formality, they can afford to pay full attention to this weekend's contest.
Go Ahead Eagles fell to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Heerenveen in this season's Eredivisie curtain-raiser at De Adelaarshorst on Friday.
The game was decided in the first half as Tibor Halilovic scored the winner six minutes into the encounter to sink Kees Van Wonderen's men.
Despite having spent the last five years in the second division, the pride of the IJssel Kowet have a better head-to-head record than this weekend's more illustrious opponents in the last decade.
Sunday's visitors have won four of the last eight clashes involving the teams, but suffered a heavy 8-0 loss in the most recent meeting back in 2017.
- W
- D
- W
- W
- W
- W
- W
- L
- D
- L
- D
- L
- L
Team News
© Reuters
Feyenoord's Mark Diemers is his side's only absentee for the contest as the 27-year-old misses out due to a knee injury.
Justin Bijlow was shown a straight red card in his side's European endeavour in midweek, but he is expected to feature this weekend.
Luis Sinisterra netted a treble in the aforementioned game and has now scored six goals in his last four competitive outings.
Twenty-year-old Ogechika Heil could be handed his first start after he made his official debut off the bench for the visitors last time out.
Feyenoord possible starting lineup:
Bijlow; Malacia, Senesi, Trauner, Pedersen; Kokcu, Aursnes, Til; Sinisterra, Linssen, Toornstra
Go Ahead Eagles possible starting lineup:
Hahn; Kuipers, Bakker, Nauber, Deijl; Lucassen, Brouwers, Rommens; Berden, Lidberg, Oratmangoen
We say: Feyenoord 2-0 Go Ahead Eagles
Feyenoord have been in imperious form of late, scoring goal at will and keeping clean sheets. They have a significantly better team on paper than their visitors, and we are backing them to claim a relatively comfortable victory.
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 Feyenoord win with a probability of 60.01%. A draw had a probability of 21.8% and a win for Go Ahead Eagles had a probability of 18.2%.
The most likely scoreline for a Feyenoord win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.84%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (10.41%) and 2-1 (9.93%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.33%), while for a Go Ahead Eagles win it was 0-1 (5.38%). The actual scoreline of 2-0 was predicted with a 10.4% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Feyenoord would win this match.
