De Graafschap vs Heerenveen Predictions

De Graafschap returned to winning ways last weekend for the first time since beating Feyenoord in their first game of the season. De Graafschap are at home on Saturday for the second game in succession, and play host to a Heerenveen side that haven’t won in the league since beating Zwolle on the opening day. Last weekend Heerenveen scored first at home to Den Haag, but were unable to maintain their lead and ended up drawing the game 1-1.

Only eighteen minutes were on the clock when Willem II midfielder Akkaynak was shown at straight red card against De Graafschap, and just three minutes later the hosts exploited their one man advantage to open the scoring through Nijland. De Graafschap should have doubled their advantage in the twenty-eighth minute when they were awarded a penalty, but Bakker fluffed his lines and the score stayed at 1-0 into the half time break.

The ten men of Willem II started the second half with purpose and soon found themselves back on level terms when substitute Saddiki scored just four minutes after being brought on. The hosts had more of the ball and created more scoring opportunities, but despite being a man down Willem II remained in the match. However, in the sixty-fourth minute the visitors had defender Palacios sent-off for a second bookable offence making them two men light for the remaining twenty-six minutes of the match.

In the eighty-ninth minute the hosts continued pressure paid off with the winning goal, but they owed a lot of the credit to Willem II defender Lewis who unfortunately put the ball into the back of his own net. De Graafschap won’t care how they won the match or if they even deserved to, all that matters is they ended their winless run in the Eredivisie and proved their victory over Feyenoord was no fluke.

With two goals apiece Nijland and Serrarens top score for the hosts this season, but De Graafschap’s only other scoring squad member is Burgzorg and they must start scoring more goals from various areas of the pitch if they are to score enough goals to remain in the top flight of Dutch football for another season.

Heerenveen have certainly not had a problem scoring goals this season, with Norway’s Thorsby leading the way on five league goals, Lammers on three, and both Bulthuis and Vlap chipping in with two goals each.

Vlap scored in the thirty-first minute at home to Den Haag last weekend, but Heerenveen couldn’t hold onto their lead and seconds before the break former CSKA Moscow striker Necid scored the visitors equaliser.

The second half saw Heerenveen create more opportunities to score than their guests, but the majority of those shots went off target. When you consider that Den Haag edged the possession stats with 51% and had more corners than their hosts during the ninety minutes, then its fair to saw a draw was the right result on the balance of play.

Heerenveen have scored fifteen goals this season and look very good gong forward, but with eighteen goals conceded their defensive record is currently the joint second worst in the Eredivisie. With that in mind, De Graafschap have to fancy their chances on Saturday, but their head to head record against their guests is poor and could come back to haunt them.

We’re backing De Graafschap with a double chance bet this weekend as we believe the hosts will come away with a point, maybe even all three against Heerenveen. De Graafschap have picked up two wins and one draw from their last five competitive matches, while Heerenveen have only won one of their last seven competitive matches. The visitors have scored in all of their last six competitive matches, and De Graafschap have only kept one clean sheet this season. In terms of a final score, we’re backing this game to end 1-1 as we can’t see either team keeping a clean sheet on Saturday.