Fresh off the back of a humbling 5-0 defeat at the hands of title-chasing Porto, Moreirense welcome Arouca to the Parque de Jogos Comendador Joaquim de Almeida Freitas on Saturday.
The visitors, meanwhile, claimed a hard-earned point against Vitoria de Guimaraes last time out and will look to build on the positives from that performance.
Match preview
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Moreirense continue to wait for their first win of the new Primeira Liga campaign after they suffered a heavy 5-0 defeat against Porto at the Estadio do Dragao last Sunday
In an utterly dominant team performance, Medhi Taremi and Luis Diaz scored twice to put the Dragoes in a comfortable four-goal lead before Pepe came off the bench to put the icing on the cake with a 77th-minute strike.
With three points from six games, Joao Henriques's side are currently 15th in the Primeira Liga table, tied on points with the bottom three sides, and that has been down to their struggles defensively as they are yet to keep a clean sheet and have conceded the most goals in the division so far with 15.
While Os Verdes e Brancos head into the weekend with the sole aim of picking up their first win of the season, they go up against an opposing side who are unbeaten in three of the most recent four meetings between the sides.
Arouca, on the other hand, made it two games without defeat last time out as they fought back from two goals down to salvage a 2-2 draw against Vitoria de Guimaraes.
In a riveting contest at the Estadio Municipal de Arouca, Ricardo Quaresma and Tiago Silva put Os Vimaranenses two goals up, but Oday Dabagh pulled one back in the 75th minute before Pite leveled the scores with what was the last kick of the game.
This was the second consecutive 2-2 draw for the Arouquenses, who were also involved in a share of the spoils against Maritimo when they met at the Estadio do Maritimo last Monday.
The newly-promoted side head into Saturday's game winless in five of their first six games so far, with a 2-1 win over league strugglers Famalicao on August 20 being the only exception.
While Arouca are currently 13th on the log, Armando Evangelista will charge his side to take the positives from their resilient display against Vitoria last time out as they could move up to 10th place with a win.
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Team News
Moreirense will take to the pitch without the services of Brazilian midfielder Jefferson Galego, who picked up an injury in their league opener against Benfica back in August.
Fellow midfielder Nikola Jambor will continue to wait for his debut as he is presently recuperating from a severe injury that has kept him out of action since January.
Ibrahima Camara was handed his first starting appearance by Henriques against Porto last time out, but, after failing to impress, the 22-year-old could make way for Filipe Soares, who will look to return to the fold for his sixth start of the season.
Meanwhile, Arouca will be unable to call upon Sema Velazquez after the Venezuelan defender sustained an Achilles tendon injury while on international duty against Argentina.
He is joined on the club's injury table by the midfield duo of Moses Yaw and Antony Santos, who have been ruled out with knee and groin injuries respectively.
Pite grabbed a last-gasp equaliser for the Arouquenses after coming on as a substitute, and considering his string of fine performances off the bench, the 27-year-old could be rewarded with his first start of the season this weekend.
Moreirense possible starting lineup:
Pasinato; Jorge, Vitoria, Rosic; Ramos, Pacheco, Soares, Conte; Santos, Martins, Luis
Arouca possible starting lineup:
Castro; Thales, Ba, Basso, Quaresma; Valderrama, Pite, Moreira; Bukia, Araujo, Silva
We say: Moreirense 1-1 Arouca
Moreirense and Arouca have struggled defensively and will have to turn a corner sooner rather than later to end their dry spell and get their season up and running. Considering they head into the game in similar form and are evenly matched on paper, we anticipate the spoils will be shared in what should be an entertaining contest.
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 Arouca win with a probability of 39.83%. A win for Moreirense had a probability of 32.97% and a draw had a probability of 27.2%.
The most likely scoreline for an Arouca win was 0-1 with a probability of 11.13%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (8.38%) and 0-2 (7.24%). The likeliest Moreirense win was 1-0 (9.91%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.88%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 7.5% likelihood.
