Maastricht vs Cambuur Leeuwarden Predictions

The final round of fixtures before the Christmas break concludes in Maastricht this Sunday afternoon as 10^th placed MVV entertain 11^th placed Cambuur at De Geusselt. This doesn’t look a particularly attractive contest on paper, but after 9^th placed Almere City were hammered 5-2 at Jong PSV on Friday, both of these teams have the chance to end 2018 in the Play-off spots with a win.

MVV will definitely be the happier of these two teams going into Sunday’s fixture – last week’s 0-1 victory at NEC was arguably one of their best results of an indifferent season to date, but overall the Maastricht outfit will be quite content sitting where they are based on their general inconsistency this term.

Ron Elsen’s side have hovered around mid-table from the outset, picking up around four points from every three matches on average, and at this stage they’re only slightly underperforming their pre-season expectations which were to make the Play-offs for the fourth consecutive campaign.

Victory here over Cambuur will lift them into the top nine heading into the festive period, and they’ll be confident of securing a result on the back of last week’s effort in Nijmegen and the 0-2 success they posted over the Leeuwarden outfit when the teams last met in February.

In contrast, Cambuur will be low in spirits going into Sunday’s clash – Rene Hake’s side have won just one of their last six Eerste Divisie games, and they were dumped out of the KNVB Beker by Fortuna Sittard in midweek.

Considering Cambuur were in the top four early on this term after four wins and three draws from their first seven fixtures, their slide down the table has been quite staggering and it will take a huge effort from Hake’s men from here on in to get moving back in the right direction.

They are of course in the same boat as MVV and can get into the Play-off places with a win here, but their status as underdogs at around the 5/2 mark is probably about right.

Cambuur pulled off an excellent 1-2 victory at Jong PSV a fortnight ago, but they’ve won just twice from nine on the road in total, losing four, and it’s likely that Wednesday’s cup tie will have taken a good deal out of Hake’s squad.

MVV have saved their best performances for their travels this season, with 18 points accrued from 10 away games compared to just eight from eight at home, but they did beat 5^th placed Roda JC 2-0 at De Geusselt last month and the carrot of moving into the Play-offs can see Ron Elsen’s side return to that level of form.

At around 11/10, we feel the hosts are decent value here to record their fourth win in six, and we’re recommending a two point stake alongside a 2-1 correct score.