Cambuur Leeuwarden vs Sparta Rotterdam Predictions

Sparta Rotterdam will be fairly satisfied with their position at the halfway stage of the Eerste Divisie season. Henk Fraser’s side sit 3^rd and on the heels of leaders Den Bosch after accruing 38 points from their 19 games SO far, but they’ll need to improve their away form to sustain an automatic promotion challenge . A 2-0 defeat at Jong Ajax in the final round before Christmas took their record on the road this term to two wins, four draws and three defeats – and they face a tough trip to Leeuwarden this Sunday to face a Cambuur outfit who signed off for the festive period with a 1-2 win at MVV.

Sparta have been priced up as odds-on favourites for this one, and it’s easy to see how that view has been taken based on their comprehensive 3-0 defeat of Cambuur at Het Kasteel in October.

Henk Fraser’s side romped to an easy victory thanks to strikes from top scorer Lars Veldwijk, Mohammed Rayhi and an own goal from David Sambissa – and the performance epitomised just how strong Sparta have been in Rotterdam this season.

Sparta have won nine and drawn one of their ten fixtures at Het Kasteel which is the best home record in the Dutch second tier by some distance, but the fact they’ve banked 28 of their 38 points on home turf leads us nicely on to their contrasting fortunes on the road.

Sparta haven’t shown anything like the same kind of form on their travels this term, and after a frustrating spate of draws, things worsened dramatically for them towards the end of 2018.

A 3-0 loss at bottom side Helmond Sport on match day 16 really set the alarm bells ringing, and Sparta then signed off for Christmas with a pretty toothless display in Amsterdam as Jong Ajax ran out cosy 2-0 winners.

Those results certainly suggest that Sparta are vulnerable heading into this Sunday’s fixture against a Cambuur outfit who managed to get their act together in the final rounds of the year.

Rene Hake’s men tailed off fairly quickly having initially gone unbeaten in their first seven matches of the campaign, but two victories from their last three against Jong PSV (1-2) and MVV (1-2) have nudged the club back in the right direction and into the Play-off picture once again.

Cambuur sit 9^th and in the final Play-off spot going into this weekend’s match, and they should be confident of holding that position at least for the time being with fixtures against strugglers Helmond and Jong AZ coming up in the next three weeks.

It’s probably asking a lot of the hosts to bank all three points here though despite the favourites questionable status as odds-on favourites, and the fact Cambuur have failed to win their last three in Leeuwarden tempers any enthusiasm for backing a home win – as does the result in the reverse fixture and recent head to head with Rotterdam winning four of the last six encounters.

It leads us to plump for a draw here at around the 3/1 mark which is quite generous based on the circumstances and Sparta’s away results which have seen almost half of their games finish all square. This should be an entertaining clash and 2-2 is our correct score prediction.