Almere City FC vs FC Dordrecht Predictions

A 2-0 defeat at Oss last weekend saw Almere City drop out of the Play-off places, but Michele Santoni’s side have a golden opportunity to get back amongst the top five on match day 15 when they entertain bottom club Dordrecht at Yanmar Stadion. City ran out 1-0 winners when the teams met at the end of September in the KNVB Beker, and the hosts are solid odds-on shots to gain a similar result here.

After 1-0 losses to promotion challengers Go Ahead Eagles and Twente in recent weeks, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Almere City came up a little short when they made the trip to Frans Heesen Stadion to face Oss on match day 14.

TOP, who went into the game 6^th, ran out deserved 2-0 winners to leapfrog City in the table, and Almere find themselves outside of the Play-offs for the first time since early September heading into this week’s encounter with Dordrecht at Yanmar Stadion.

With Oss facing a tough visit to leaders Go Ahead Eagles on Friday, a win here for City could see them bounce straight back into the top five, but they’ll do well to stay there in the run up to Christmas, with away fixtures against Sparta Rotterdam and Jong PSV coming up.

Almere are solid odds-on favourites to land the spoils in this one though, and they’re difficult to oppose, despite having their limitations exposed of late.

A goal from Kevin Luckassen earned them a 1-0 victory in the 1^ST Round of the KNVB Beker when the teams last met in September, and Dordrecht have since slumped to the foot of the standings, having won just one of their 14 league matches this season.

After a 0-3 trouncing at home to FC Eindhoven in match day 14, Gerard De Nooijer was finally ousted as manager this week and replaced on a temporary basis by assistant Scott Calderwood, who will first seek to improve Dordrecht’s atrocious displays on the road, with just a solitary point gained from seven away outings so far this term.

Dordrecht did pull off an upset at Yanmar Stadion in 2017/18, landing a 1-2 victory amidst a fine run that saw them win the Period 3 table, but there is nothing to suggest that a repeat is on the cards this time around, even though the visitors could turn in a better performance, as so many teams do when a new man takes over in the hot seat.

For all that, City are regularly failing to beat the teams around them at the top of Eerste Divisie, Volendam are the only club in the bottom half that they’ve not bested this term, so we expect them to get the job done this Friday.

We want to boost their odds though by backing both teams to score as well, something which has been a feature in five of City’s home games this season and five of Dordrecht’s away assignments. Furthermore, the hosts have only managed to keep a clean sheet twice in their 14 league fixtures, so a 3-1 success in their favour is a realistic scoreline for this Friday’s clash.