FC Oss vs Helmond Sport Predictions

Oss are still 5^th in the Eerste Divisie table, but it’s been a challenging fortnight for Klaas Wels’ side. After a 0-5 mauling at home to Roda JC on match day 16, TOP were then bested 2-1 by defending champions Jong Ajax in Amsterdam last Friday. Oss return to Fras Heesen Stadion this week, but can they return to winning ways against bottom club Helmond Sport?

Oss blew a decent start last term and eventually finished out with the washing in 15^th, and questions will be asked of Klaas Wels’ side again now following consecutive league defeats in the last two weeks.

It’s pretty hard to fathom how a team can go from beating 3^rd placed Go Ahead Eagles 0-1 on the road to losing 0-5 at home to Roda JC, but Oss will need to find a way of steadying the ship soon after slipping to another defeat at Jong Ajax on match day 17.

Fortunately for TOP, they play host to bottom side Helmond Sport this Friday, and they really couldn’t have wished for a much easier game to restore some confidence and get back on track.

Sport pulled off the surprise of the season a fortnight ago in beating Sparta Rotterdam 3-0 at home, but that is their only victory of the campaign to date and indeed their only win in their last 26 competitive outings. Rob Alflen’s side didn’t exactly revert to type in terms of performance at Go Ahead Eagles last week, but they did ultimately lose 1-0 to remain at the foot of the Eerste Divisie standings.

The result made it three draws and five defeats from eight away assignments this term, and they head into this week’s contest at Frans Heesen Stadion having lost their last four on the road.

Helmond’s main issue away from home is goals – they’ve managed just five in total thus far in 2018/19, netting in only half of their matches, and far too often they fail to land any kind of blow when on their travels.

They’ll be encouraged by the fact that Oss shipped five in their last home outing, but prior to that Oss had kept three clean sheets from seven games at Frans Heesen Stadion, conceding just six goals overall.

Oss are rightfully favourites here based on the above factors and that put simply, they’re a much better team than Sport who deserve to be propping the table 17 games in to the campaign.

But it’s impossible to throw weight behind Klaas Wels’ side at such a short price on the evidence of their last two matches, and it’s perhaps worth waiting to see how they respond in this one before considering them again from a betting perspective.

So we’re focusing on the goals angle here, and there’s plenty to like about under 2.5 goals at around the 7/5 mark.

10 of Oss’ 17 league matches have finished with fewer than 2.5 goals, with the same applying to seven of Helmond’s 17 fixtures.

We know Sport struggle desperately for goals on the road whilst Oss have scored just once in their last three matches, so there’s a strong chance that this will be a tight affair. We’re going for a 1-0 correct score as well in favour of the hosts, as they are likely to come out best but probably only via a narrow margin as they look to find their feet again.