Unbeaten in five league games, PEC Zwolle visit the Erve Asito to face off against Heracles on Saturday in round 24 of the 2021-22 Eredivisie season.
Meanwhile, Heracles will be keen to get one over this weekend's opponents and exact revenge for a 1-0 defeat in October's reverse fixture.
Match preview
Zwolle played out a second consecutive share of the spoils on home turf following a 1-1 draw versus Groningen at the Mac3Park Stadion on Sunday.
Dick Schreuder's men fell behind to Laros Duarte's opener nine minutes shy of half time and were on course to come away empty-handed before Yuta Nakayama restored parity with a late leveller.
The Blauwvingers are still bottom of the pile in the Eredivisie table but are now just four points adrift of safety having picked up 11 of the last 15 points available.
Awaiting them next is the challenge of an opposing side who lost just one of the four meetings between the teams in 2021, winning two and drawing one.
Off the back of consecutive victories on the road, Saturday's visitors will head into this weekend's contest with the wind in their sails as they seek to steer clear of danger.
Heracles fell to a second straight away loss courtesy of a 2-1 defeat against AZ Alkmaar when the sides clashed at the AFAS Stadion on Saturday.
Frank Wormuth's men conceded a 25th-minute opener to Tijjani Reijnders before drawing level through Nikolai Laursen, only for Vangelis Pavlidis to decide the game with a second-half winner.
Consequently, The Heraclieden remain 12th in the league standings and have now seen their cushion from the drop zone drop to four points.
Unbeaten in their last four home matches where they have amassed eight of a possible 12 points, Saturday's hosts will back themselves to secure another impressive result come the final whistle in this one.
- D
- D
- D
- L
- W
- L
- D
- D
- W
- L
- W
- L
- L
- W
- W
- D
- W
- D
- W
- L
- W
- D
- W
- D
Team News
Heracles' trio of Kaj Sierhuis, Elias Oubella and Ismail Azzaoui remain sidelined with knee injuries and will play no part in this weekend's clash.
Rai Vloet is still unfit to play and has featured just once since the turn of the year which came in a second-half cameo versus NEC in mid-January.
Croatian defender Mateo Les rounds off his side's absentees for Sunday's meeting, as he is also expected to miss out through a torn muscle.
Sam Kersten and Samir Lagsir are both unavailable for Zwolle due to knee injuries, but Siemen Voet is now eligible to take part after serving a two-game ban.
Thirty-six-year-old Bram van Polen was the match winner in the reverse fixture and is one to keep an eye on having netted twice in his last four appearances.
Heracles possible starting lineup:
Blaswich; Roosken, Knoester, Hoogma, Rente, Fadiga; Basacikoglu, Ouahim, Kiomourtzoglou, Laursen; Szoke
PEC Zwolle possible starting lineup:
Lamprou; Van der Werff, Nakayama, Van Polen; Reijnders, Anderson, Strieder, Clement, De Wit; Darfalou, Redan
We say: Heracles 1-0 PEC Zwolle
Both teams have struggled for goals all-season long, so we expect a low-scoring affair in this one with clear-cut chances at a premium. That said, we are also backing Heracles to narrowly edge out Zwolle by the odd goal and come away with all three points.
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 Heracles win with a probability of 55.96%. A draw had a probability of 22.3% and a win for PEC Zwolle had a probability of 21.7%.
The most likely scoreline for a Heracles win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.89%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.56%) and 2-0 (9.04%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.45%), while for a PEC Zwolle win it was 1-2 (5.72%). The actual scoreline of 2-0 was predicted with a 9% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Heracles would win this match.
