Gameweek five of the Eredivisie season sees Heerenveen and Fortuna Sittard lock horns at the Abe Lenstra Stadion on Saturday as the teams seek to get back to winning ways.
Both side come into the contest having picked up just one point from their last two games apiece, so a win here would be a very welcome result.
Match preview
Heerenveen were denied all three points away from home for the first time this term following a 1-1 draw versus Groningen at the Hitachi Capital Mobility Stadium on Sunday.
Johnny Jansen's men went into the break with a slender lead courtesy of Tibor Halilovic's 19th-minute strike, only for Cyril Ngonge to level matters midway through the second half.
Consequently, De Superfriezen have climbed into fourth place on the log, albeit now five points adrift of early frontrunners PSV Eindhoven.
Awaiting them next is the visit of a Fortuna Sittard side against whom they claimed a 3-1 win in last season's first meeting in September, before being on the wrong end of the same scoreline in the reverse fixture four months later.
Saturday's hosts, who lost to AZ Alkmaar in their last outing on home turf, will be keen to give their fans reason to celebrate this time around.
Fortuna Sittard suffered defeat for the first time this season on Sunday when they lost 3-1 against Sparta Rotterdam at the Het Kasteel.
Goals from Bryan Smeets and Lennart Thy saw Sjors Ultee's men go into the break trailing by two, but Mats Seuntjens reduced the deficit early in the second half after which Emanuel Emegha scored the clincher.
The Fortunezen have slipped into the bottom half of the log but still with a game in hand following their round two clash versus AZ, which was called off.
Saturday's visitors, who are without a win in any of their last three league matches away from home dating back to last season, have it all to do if they are to end that run this weekend.
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Team News
Pawel Bochniewicz is unavailable for Saturday's game with a knee injury which he suffered in a pre-season friendly against Zwolle back in July.
Defender Rami Kaib is also not expected to feature for the home side as he is set to sit out a third consecutive game due to a jaw injury.
Fortuna's Lisandro Semedo remains sidelined with an ankle problem, and the 25-year-old will miss his side's trip to Heerenveen this weekend.
Mats Seuntjens has now been directly involved in four of the visitors' five goals so far, making him one to keep an eye on this weekend.
Mickael Tirpan is a doubt for the contest after he was hauled off with a minor injury 70 minutes into the game versus Sparta last time out.
Heerenveen possible starting lineup:
Mulder; Dresevic, Woudenberg, Van Beek, Van Ewijk; J.Veerman, Halilovic, Kongolo; De Jong, H.Veerman, Stevanovic
Fortuna Sittard possible starting lineup:
Van Osch; Cox, Janssen, Angha, Tirpan; Rienstra, Tekie, Flemming; Seuntjens, Duarte, Hansson
We say: Heerenveen 2-1 Fortuna Sittard
Meetings between these two teams are usually very end-to-end and entertaining with a lot of goals. We expect that trend to continue this weekend, with the home side just managing to narrowly edge out their visitors by the odd goal.
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 48.14%. A win for Fortuna Sittard had a probability of 27.24% and a draw had a probability of 24.6%.
The most likely scoreline for a Heerenveen win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.06%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.45%) and 2-0 (8.16%). The likeliest Fortuna Sittard win was 0-1 (7.19%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.65%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with a 10.1% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 1-0 win for Heerenveen in this match.
