FC Volendam vs FC Oss Predictions

TOP Oss make the trip to Kras Stadion to face Volendam on match day five, with the visitors seeking their fourth win of the Eerste Divisie campaign.

Regular strugglers over the past few seasons, TOP have been one of the surprise packages thus far, and a nine point haul from their first four games leaves Klaas Wels’ side 4^th in the table heading into this Friday’s fixtures.

TOP’s only blip came via a 1-3 defeat at home to Cambuur on match day three, but they bounced back brilliantly last weekend to beat FC Twente 1-2 at De Grolsch Veste, thanks to goals from Bryan Smeets and the prolific Huseyin Dogan who notched his 5^th goal of the campaign.

Dogan leads the Eerste Divisie scoring charts alongside Mario Engels and Karim Rossi, and the 24 year-old is really excelling this term having managed just four goals in 31 appearances last season.

Volendam certainly won’t be looking forward to dealing with Dogan and a much improved Oss side this Friday following their dismal opening to 2018/19.

Misha Salden’s men have picked up just a solitary point via a 1-1 draw at home to Jong AZ on match day two, and they’ve suffered comprehensive defeats to Sparta Rotterdam (2-0) and table toppers Go Ahead Eagles (3-0) over the past fortnight, to add to their opening night 1-2 loss at home to Den Bosch.

It leaves Palingboeren 18^th in the standings ahead of Top’s visit to Kras Stadion, where the visitors will be confident of exposing the host’s leaky defence which has shipped eight times in four matches so far.

After overseeing an underwhelming 14^th place finish last term, Salden must be walking on thin ice right now and it remains to be seen how long the Volendam board will wait before taking action.

A win this week would of course ease matters for Salden and his charges – and they’ll at least be encouraged by the 3-1 success they enjoyed over Klaas Wels’ side here in 2017/18, as well as the club’s excellent overall head to head record with Oss, which boasts 22 wins and 8 draws from 34 meetings.

As long term head to head stats go in Eerste Divisie, that’s just about as convincing as it gets, so punters have to treat this fixture with a little caution.

Nonetheless, these two clubs simply appear to be moving in completely different directions, and it’s worth remembering that Volendam finished off the last campaign really badly too with four consecutive defeats – meaning they’ve not won in the Dutch second tier since beating Emmen 2-3 on 6^th April.

So we’re taking the form angle here over historical trends, and we believe TOP Oss can register a fourth win from five outings at Kras Stadion this Friday.

With Volendam scoring in both of their home matches so far but conceding two goals per game overall, we also think that 1-2 is the logical correct score selection in favour of the visitors.