Separated by just two points and as many places in the Eredivisie table, Heerenveen and NEC lock horns at the Abe Lenstra Stadion on Sunday.
Both sides have failed to come out on top in any of their three opening league games of 2022 and now is as good a time as any to arrest that slump in form.
Match preview
In keeping with their woeful start to the new year, Heerenveen fell to a 2-0 defeat against Fortuna Sittard in the sides' meeting at the Fortuna Sittard Stadion on Saturday.
Zian Flemming opened the scoring a quarter of an hour into the contest before grabbing a second in the 70th minute to sink Johnny Jansen's men.
Having come away from each of their last four games empty-handed, De Superfriezen have dropped to 11th place in the Eredivisie table and are in need of a pick-me-up.
Their next task comes against an opposing outfit who are unbeaten in eight of the most recent nine contests between the teams dating back to 2013.
Sunday's hosts also will also be concerned about their poor home form heading into this weekend's match, as only three teams in the entire division have picked up fewer points.
NEC were dumped out of the KNVB-Beker on Thursday following a 2-0 defeat to Go Ahead Eagles at Stadion de Goffert.
Rogier Meijer's men found themselves two goals down inside the opening 27 minutes thanks to Luuk Brouwers's penalty and a Giannis-Foivos Botos strike.
The Eniesee played out a 1-1 stalemate versus PEC Zwolle in their last league outing and have now fallen eight points behind FC Utrecht in the race for the last European spot.
Unbeaten in their last five away matches across all competitions, Sunday's visitors will be confident of getting their season back on track with a positive result come the final whistle.
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Team News
January arrival Joost van Aken will have to wait for his Heerenveen debut as he continues to battle with a foot injury since arriving as a free agent.
Pawel Bochniewicz is also unavailable for Sunday's match due to a knee problem which he suffered in a pre-season friendly versus Zwolle back in July.
NEC's Joep van der Sluijs and Rens van Eijden are sidelined with knee injuries, while Mathias de Wolf is yet to feature this campaign due to a long-term injury.
Forward Pedro Ruiz faces the possibility of sitting out a 12th consecutive game through a leg injury, but the Spaniard is not far off a return to action.
Nineteen-year-old Ali Akman earned his side a point in the reverse fixture and will be looking to come up trumps once again despite having netted only once in his last 10 outings.
Heerenveen possible starting lineup:
Mous; Kaib, Woudeberg, Dresevic, Van Ewijk; Haye, Al Hajj, Madsen; Musaba, Stevanovic, De Jong
NEC possible starting lineup:
Branderhorst; Verdonk, Guth, Odenthal; El Karouani, Schone, Bruijn, Van Rooy; Vet, Tavsan, Mattsson
We say: Heerenveen 1-1 NEC
There is little to choose between the teams heading into this one and either of them could come away with all three points. However, we are backing a share of the spoils with both sides cancelling each other out over the course of the 90 minutes.
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 Heerenveen win with a probability of 37.36%. A win for NEC had a probability of 36.84% and a draw had a probability of 25.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Heerenveen win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.09%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.31%) and 2-0 (6.17%). The likeliest NEC win was 0-1 (9.01%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.23%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 9% likelihood.
