Almere City FC vs FC Volendam Predictions

After a promising start to the campaign which saw them up with the pace setters early on, Almere City’s form plummeted towards the end of 2018. Three consecutive defeats in December mean that Michele Santoni’s side start the New Year outside of the Play-off places in 10^th position, and they desperately need a victory at home to Volendam this weekend to start turning things around.

NEC are perhaps the only other team in Eerste Divisie who endured a more miserable end to 2018, but Almere City certainly weren’t far behind in that respect following crushing December defeats to Sparta Rotterdam (6-1) and Jong PSV (5-2), either side of a 2-3 reversal against Jong Ajax at Yanmar Stadion.

City are now without a win in six outings with lacklustre 1-1 draws against lowly Telstar and Dordrecht the only points gained since mid-November, and Michele Santoni’s men are now fighting just to get back into the Play-off picture having been up with the leaders during the opening weeks of the campaign.

The Christmas break will have come as a great relief to Schappenkoppen and boss Santoni, who must surely be feeling the pressure after such a dramatic tail off in form. Results will need to improve fast for the Italian if he’s to stay in charge at the club for the foreseeable future.

We can probably expect renewed effort and engagement from City this Sunday when they take on Volendam at home, and the game offers the hosts a decent chance to stop the rot with the visitors struggling to break into the top half of the table.

Volendam went on an eight match unbeaten run following the appointment of Hans De Koning at the start of October, but results have tapered off somewhat in the past few rounds and Palingboeren head into this fixture having lost three of their last four – albeit they did sign off for Christmas with a narrow 1-0 success against Telstar at Kras Stadion.

But whilst they sit 13^th and fairly statically compared to free falling Almere, Volendam’s record on the road this term reads one win, three draws and five defeats from nine, which means they’re an extremely risky betting proposition for this clash.

That said, Almere don’t exactly have much going for them either at present and it’s impossible to make a case for the hosts at a shade of odds on.

So we’re swerving the match result on that basis – it’s likely to be a close affair as the sides’ 2-2 draw was in the reverse fixture, and that nicely leads us into the goals markets to find an alternative wager.

We fancy a high scoring encounter once again based on how open recent games involving Almere have been (19 goals in City’s last three league matches), whilst three of Volendam’s last four fixtures have seen over 2.5 goals and both teams hitting the net – something which has been a feature of four of the last six clashes between these teams.

That’s our confident selection for Sunday’s contest and we’re also going to chance a repeat of that 2-2 draw in the correct score market.