Cambuur Leeuwarden vs Helmond Sport Predictions

Cambuur take on Helmond Sport in Eerste Divisie this Friday, in a game they’ll view as must win after three successive defeats. Rene Hake’s men have fallen to 8^th in the table after initially challenging at the top of the league, and know that they’ll need to turn things around pretty quickly to stay in contention for a Play-off place this term.

It was a dream start for Cambuur with four wins and two draws gained from their first six outings this season, but things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse over the last three weeks.

The Leeuwarden outfit slipped to a 0-1 defeat at home to Roda JC on match day seven, and Rene Hake’s charges haven’t recovered since.

They were dismal throughout a 3-1 reverse against bottom side Dordrecht a fortnight ago, and last weekend they were blown away 3-0 by co-leaders Sparta Rotterdam at Het Kasteel.

Cambuur are now 8^th in the standings and six points off the pace having been as high as 2^nd earlier in the season, and will have to stop the rot this weekend to prevent potentially dropping into the bottom half.

Fortunately for Cambuur, they host the only team in the league without a win to their name this Friday in the shape of 19^th placed Helmond Sport.

Sport have in fact now gone 17 games without success in an abysmal run stretching back to last term, and they look booked to finish bottom this season based on what we’ve seen from them thus far.

Rob Alflen’s men were turned over 1-2 at home to Telstar last weekend with a red card for full-back Jeroen Verkennis further adding to their woes, and it can only be a matter of time before the club step in to review the managerial situation further – despite the fact Alflen has only been in charge since the summer.

One slight positive for Sport is their resistance away from home – they’ve managed three draws from four outings on their travels, but two of those did come against 16^th placed Jong AZ (2-2) and bottom side Dordrecht (0-0).

Helmond will definitely try to frustrate Cambuur in this one, and whilst we don’t have enough confidence in the visitors pulling off a result, we do think they’ll keep the contest low scoring.

Sport have only conceded five goals away, whilst Cambuur have netted just twice in their last four league matches.

So with the match betting given a wide berth due to the atrocious form of both teams, that leads us to under 2.5 goals at a generous odds against. We do slightly favour the hosts for the win based on their displays in the opening weeks of the campaign, so we’re also going for a 1-0 triumph for Cambuur in the correct score market.