FC Eindhoven vs NEC Nijmegen Predictions

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe that NEC were amongst the bookies’ favourites for promotion before the Eerste Divisie campaign started, as the Nijmegen outfit have easily been the biggest disappointment of the season so far. A renewed effort from Jack De Gier’s side is expected at the start of 2019, but their status as favourites for Sunday’s game away at FC Eindhoven is highly questionable for plenty of reasons.

After accruing 15 points from their first seven league fixtures, NEC suffered a quite remarkable collapse towards the end of 2018 and find themselves 12^th in Eerste Divisie going into their match day 20 clash against FC Eindhoven at Jan Louwers Stadion.

The negative stats for the NEC are pretty endless – they’ve lost eight of their last 12 league games including their last three and have just one win from their last seven outings. Jack De Gier’s side carried a huge home unbeaten streak into this season which was eventually halted at 23 games by Sunday’s opponents in October’s reverse fixture, and they’ve since been beaten twice more at Goffertstadion including an embarrassing 1-5 thrashing against Oss.

And if that wasn’t enough, NEC have lost their last four Eerste Divisie games on the road including a 2-0 defeat at Twente on their most recent outing.

So all in all, the visitors are extremely weak favourites for this weekend’s clash at a touch of odds against, and they look ripe for taking on despite the calibre of opposition not being the best.

Hosts FC Eindhoven are 15^th heading into match day 20 and three points behind NEC, however their disappointing league position is largely due to a dreadful start which saw David Nascimento’s charges lose their first five league fixtures.

Since then, Eindhoven’s record reads won six, drawn four and lost four from 14 – and it’s fair to say they’ll probably finish a fair bit higher in the standings than where they are now if they keep notching points at the same rate.

Eindhoven’s poor home form is an obvious concern for backers here – they’ve lost five from nine at Jan Louwers Stadion and have won just once in total against 18^th placed Helmond Sport – but it’s not inconceivable that they can soon start replicating their strong away showings in front of their own supporters.

With that aforementioned 0-1 success against NEC at Goffertstadion in the bag from earlier in the season, this could be the perfect time for Eindhoven to start doing just that and the risk that they won’t is factored into their generous price.

It leaves us with plenty to support the hosts for this one then, as the visitors are clearly a team to avoid right now – especially at such a short price. We don’t think there will be too much in it, but we’re opting for a 2-1 score line in favour of Nascimento’s side.