Twente vs Helmond Sport Predictions

Only time will tell how significant last weekend’s fixtures will prove to be, but Twente were the big winners on match day 22. The Enschede outfit beat Almere City 1-3 to secure their sixth straight league victory, and took over at the top of Eerste Divisie as long time leaders Den Bosch made way after a 2-0 defeat to FC Eindhoven. With chasers Sparta Rotterdam and Go Ahead Eagles also continuing to falter, Twente are in the driving seat for promotion heading into this Friday’s straightforward looking contest against Helmond Sport.

Of course, there are still 16 games to go in the regular campaign, but Twente may be difficult to stop now that they’ve got their noses in front. The former Dutch champions are by far the biggest club in the second tier, and they want to return to Eredivisie at the first time of asking this term.

Last week’s KNVB Beker quarter-final against Willem II provided a decent test in terms of where Twente are at present, and Marino Pusic’s side almost passed the examination. They were ultimately edged out 2-3 by the Tilburg outfit who progressed to the last four, but the performance showed that the Enschede club have come a long way already since last season’s relegation.

That result will probably work to Twente’s advantage in the long run as they can now solely focus on the race for automatic promotion, and they appeared to be driven on by their cup exit at Yanmar Stadion last Saturday.

Twente weren’t quite at their best against struggling Almere City, who fought admirably in their attempt to avoid a sixth defeat on the spin, but Pusic’s side showed enough class and saw things out well after Aitor Cantalapiedra and Tom Boere had given them  a healthy two goal lead before half time.

Twente had their share of slip-ups during the first half of the campaign as their record of four home defeats from 11 shows, but they’re finally achieving some real consistency and grinding out results when they need to.

Helmond Sport have the unenviable task of trying to stop them on match day 23, and Rob Alflen’s charges are a huge price to claim any kind of positive result at De Grolsch Veste.

Back to back reversals against Cambuur (0-1) and MVV (3-0) have seemingly put a stop to Helmond’s mini resurgence at the end of last year, and Sport travel to Enschede still in search of their first away win this season.

Sport have drawn five and lost six from 11 on the road, so only the most optimistic of punters would wish to get behind them here. Nonetheless, the Helmond players will take some positivity into the game after holding Twente to a 2-2 draw at Lavans Stadion back in August.

Twente are much improved since then though, and one key transformation in recent weeks for Friday’s hosts has been their resoluteness in defence. They kept four clean sheets on the bounce prior to conceding that single goal at Almere last week, so we’re getting behind the favourites to win to nil here.

That boosts the price of a Twente win considerably and it’s got every chance with Sport scoring just seven times away from home this term. This won’t be a thrashing, but Twente should keep Sport comfortably at arms-length and 2-0 is our correct score prediction.