NEC Nijmegen vs Maastricht Predictions

NEC were ten minutes away from landing their best result of the season at Den Bosch last week, but Jack De Gier’s side fell apart in the closing stages to lose their sixth league game of what is increasingly becoming a disastrous campaign. The Nijmegen outfit are now out of the Play-off places in 10^th, and face a tricky test this Friday at Goffertstadion against an MVV side that have shown a decent level of form on the road this season.

If any game could have turned NEC’s ailing season around, it was last week’s clash against leaders Den Bosch at Stadion De Vliert.

Jack De Gier’s men played brilliantly for the majority of the game to go 1-2 up, hinting why they were pre-season favourites for promotion, only to collapse in the final ten minutes to go down 3-2 and leave s-Hertogenbosch empty handed.

The result dealt the heftiest of blows to Eerste Divisie biggest underachievers this term, but NEC have shown far too often now that they have a soft centre and cannot competently see games though.

Ultimately, De Gier’s side succumbed to a team who simply keep going for the full 90 minutes each week and believe that they’re going to get a result every time they step out onto the pitch.

And until NEC find some resolve, they’re going to be plying their trade around mid-table with qualification to the 1^st Round of the Play-offs looking like their realistic target for the remainder of the campaign.

The positive for NEC this Friday is that they return to Goffertstadion where they’ve been marginally more solid overall, having only suffered two of their six league defeats at home.

They hammered Volendam 5-1 in their last outing here a fortnight ago which easily represented one of their best efforts of the season, and a repeat of that performance would make life very difficult for visitors MVV.

The away side have only lost two of their nine outings on the road this term, although both of those defeats have been in the last three games on their travels, including a 3-1 loss at 15^th placed RKC last week.

That result means it’s now three defeats in six overall for Ron Elsen’s men who are 12^th in the table, and the Maastricht outfit just can’t seem to put a run of any real significance together, with two straight wins the best they’ve managed all season.

Not much to really recommend the visitors here then, especially after 4-1 defeats on their last two visits to Nijmegen, but the hosts are also hard to support at long odds-on.

This fixture has been all about goals in the recent past, with the last four encounters finishing 4-1 one way or the other, and many of NEC’s home games this season have been high scoring affairs.

Their nine fixtures at Goffertstadion have featured 34 goals in total with five featuring over 3.5 goals, whilst two of MVV’s last three away matches have seen four or more goals fly in.

So at odds-against, we’re going for over 3.5 in this one as we expect the teams’ tradition of high scoring contests to continue. In terms of the correct score, we like the look of 2-2 at a decent price.