Defending champions Ajax visit the Erve Asito on Saturday to face off against Heracles seeking to continue their fine start to the 2021-22 Eredivisie season.
The visitors, on the other hand, will be looking to avoid a third consecutive league defeat and pick up a fourth straight home victory.
Match preview
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Ajax delivered a real statement of intent in their top-of-the-table clash versus PSV Eindhoven on Sunday when they claimed a resounding 5-0 win.
Steven Berghuis, Antony Santos, Sebastien Haller, Dusan Tadic and Davy Klaassen were all on target for Erik ten Hag's men in a largely one-sided affair at the Johan Cruyff ArenA.
Unsurprisingly, De Godenzonen still lead the way and have now stretched their lead at the summit to four points following last week's victory.
Awaiting them next is a trip to a ground where they have struggled of late, having suffered defeat in three of the last four outings.
However, Saturday's visitors came out on top in the most recent encounter back in February and will be confident of securing all three points once again.
Heracles away struggles continue as they were beaten 1-0 by PEC Zwolle at the MAC³PARK Stadion on Saturday.
With the scores level heading into added time, Bram van Polen popped up with the decisive moment as he calmly dispatched a penalty to put Frank Wormuth's men to the sword.
The Heraclieden are 14th in the Eredivisie table, just a point above the relegation zone and in need of a pick-me-up.
Off the back of a KNVB-Beker victory in midweek, Saturday's hosts will be looking to use that as a springboard for a solid run of results in the coming weeks.
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Team News
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Heracles will take to the field without the services of Kasper Jakobsen, who has not featured in any of the last seven matches due to a knee injury.
Twenty-three-year-old Adrian Szoke is also ruled out as he is set to miss a fourth consecutive game due to illness.
Davy Klaassen and Sebastien Haller were in inspired form in this fixture last season, and the duo will be looking to come up trumps once again.
Sean Klaiber continues to battle with a knee injury, and he is not expected to be available for his side's trip to Almelo this weekend.
Heracles possible starting lineup:
Blaswich; Quagliata, Knoester, Rente, Fadiga; De La Torre, Schoofs, Vloet; Basacikoglu, Burgzorg, Sierhuis
Ajax possible starting lineup:
Pasveer; Mazraoui, Timber, Martinez, Blind; Alvarez, Gravenberch, Klaassen; Berghuis, Tadic, Haller
We say: Heracles 0-4 Ajax
Ajax reaffirmed their status as the team to beat with the demolition of their nearest challengers last time out and are huge favourites to come out on top in this one. We fancy them to get the job done, scoring plenty of goals en route.
Top tip
Adepoju Marvellous
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 Ajax win with a probability of 70.28%. A draw had a probability of 17.4% and a win for Heracles had a probability of 12.34%.
The most likely scoreline for an Ajax win was 0-2 with a probability of 10.85%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (9.6%) and 0-1 (9.19%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.12%), while for a Heracles win it was 2-1 (3.59%). The actual scoreline of 0-0 was predicted with a 3.9% likelihood.
