Groningen and RKC Waalwijk raise the curtain on round nine of the 2022-23 Eredivisie season with a meeting at the Euroborg on Friday.
With the teams currently separated by just two points in the league standings, this game has all the makings of a keenly-contested affair.
Match preview
Groningen suffered a second straight defeat on Saturday when they were on the receiving end of a comprehensive 4-1 thrashing at the hands of AZ Alkmaar.
Frank Wormuth's men found themselves two goals down thanks to strikes from Dani de Wit and Jesper Karlsson before pulling one back through Ricardo Pepi, after which Milos Kerkez and Mayckel Lahdo put the game to bed with second-half strikes.
Consequently, Trots van het Noorden have dropped to 12th place in the Eredivisie table and are now four points off the last European spot.
Awaiting them next is the challenge of an opposing outfit who are unbeaten in the most recent three clashes involving the teams after failing to win any of the six encounters prior.
Off the back of consecutive losses on their home turf, Friday's hosts will be aiming to get themselves back on track in front of their fans.
Waalwijk had to make do with a share of the spoils following a thrilling 2-2 stalemate against Sparta Rotterdam at the Mandemakers Stadion on Sunday.
Joseph Oosting's men took 1-0 and 2-1 leads thanks to strikes from Michiel Kramer and Iliass Bel Hassani, but they were pegged back on both occasions by Arno Verschueren.
With 10 points picked up from eight matches so far, RKC sit ninth in the league table despite a rough start which saw them fail to win any of their opening four matches.
Winless in their last six matches on the road since July, Friday's visitors will be keen to turn their away fortunes around by securing a positive result here.
Team News
Waalwijk's Michiel Kramer was forced off with a first-half injury last time out and the in-form forward, who has netted four times in his last four games, is a doubt for this one.
Florian Jozefzoon sustained a muscle injury while on international duty with Suriname, ruling him out of Friday's contest as a result.
Jan Hoekstra is yet to feature for Groningen since January due to a long-term shoulder problem, and he is expected to be unavailable here.
The home side are also set to be without the services of Liam Van Gelderen as the 21-year-old lasted just 11 minutes in the defeat to AZ Alkmaar.
Cyril Ngonge will be pushing for a place in the starting XI having recently made his return to action with a second-half cameo in the aforementioned game.
Groningen possible starting lineup:
Verrips; Dankerlui, Kasanwirjo, Balker, Dybvik; Suslov, Pelupessy, Duarte, Oratmangoen; Pepi, Kruger
RKC Waalwijk possible starting lineup:
Vaessen; Lelieveld, Gaari, Adewoye, Van den Buijs, Lutonda; Bel Hassani, Anita, Clement; Lobete, Kuijpers
We say: Groningen 1-1 RKC Waalwijk
The sides have struggled defensively of late so we expect neither of them to come away with a clean sheet. We are also backing a share of the spoils with honours even at the end of the 90 minutes.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
