The pick of the bunch in round 21 of the 2021-22 Eredivisie season sees PSV Eindhoven and AZ Alkmaar face off at the Philips Stadion on Saturday.
Both teams head into the clash having failed to win their respective last outings and will be looking to return to winning ways as soon as possible.
Match preview
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PSV suffered a first league defeat since October - a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Ajax - two Saturdays ago as they were beaten once again by Ajax.
Roger Schmidt's men fell behind to Brian Brobbey's opener 11 minutes shy of the interval before hitting back through Mario Gotze's strike in the second half, only for Noussair Mazraoui to decide the game with a 74th-minute winner.
As a result, The Rood-witten have dropped down to second place in the Eredivisie table, two points off top spot but with plenty of time to reclaim leadership of the division.
Awaiting the 2018 champions next is a crunch clash versus an opposing side who they have only beaten once in the last five meetings between the teams, losing the other four.
However, Saturday's hosts emerged victorious in the most recent encounter back in September's reverse fixture, which ended 3-0 in PSV's favour.
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AZ Alkmaar were denied an 11th straight win across all competitions following a goalless draw against Cambuur at the AFAS Stadion on January 22.
Pascal Jansen's men dominated proceedings for the majority of the contest but failed to find a way past a staunch and dogged opposition rearguard.
Nonetheless, The Cheeseheads have moved up one place into fifth position but are 10 points adrift of this weekend's opponents ahead of the mouth-watering clash in Eindhoven.
Away games have proven to be an Achilles' heel for Saturday's visitors, who have only managed to amass 13 of a possible 30 points on the road, and that must improve in the second half of the season if they are to stand any significant chance of returning to the Champions League.
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Team News
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Twenty-year-olds Mees Kreekels and Shurandy Sambo are both down with long-term knee injuries and are unavailable for this weekend's hosts.
Ryan Thomas remains doubtful for PSV due to a knee problem, while youngster Noni Madueke is yet to make his return to action from a muscle injury.
Off the back of a man-of-the-match performance in the reverse fixture where he had a direct hand in two of his side's three goals, Yorbe Vertessen will be looking to deliver the goods once again.
Bruno Martins Indi has missed AZ's last four games through a hamstring problem which he picked up in his final outing of 2021 against Groningen.
Zakaria Aboukhlal and the Morocco national team recently crashed out of the Africa Cup of Nations, but the forward is not expected to be back in time for Saturday's match.
PSV Eindhoven possible starting lineup:
Drommel; Junior, Obispo, Boscagli, Teze; Van Ginkel, Gutierrez, Veerman; Gotze, Gakpo, Zahavi
AZ Alkmaar possible starting lineup:
Vindahl; Sugawara, Chatzidiakos, Beukema, Wijndal; Clasie, Midtsjo, De Wit; Karlsson, Pavlidis, Gudmundsson
We say: PSV Eindhoven 2-1 AZ Alkmaar
With plenty of attacking talent on display, we expect an enthralling battle with goals at both ends and a narrow victory for the home side come the end 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 PSV Eindhoven win with a probability of 55.98%. A draw had a probability of 22.1% and a win for AZ Alkmaar had a probability of 21.95%.
The most likely scoreline for a PSV Eindhoven win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.87%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.09%) and 2-0 (8.75%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.24%), while for an AZ Alkmaar win it was 1-2 (5.78%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 5.8% likelihood.
